Monday, November 25, 2013

Conversation with a Christian (Part 1)


Fed up with the lack of appreciation for original work in the Google community and much too embarrassed by his own ramblings, our author, James L. Beasley Jr., has decided to wash his hands of this particular piece of work.  He has paid me well to edit and post the rest of this series as I see fit.  I feel that in his honest nature, he wouldn’t mind a bit of objective criticism along the way.  All I was handed for this assignment was an hour and a half recorded conversation.  This is the second part to what I believe he has already posted under the title Memo from the Theology Editor’s Desk.  This conversation has been edited due to time and repetitive ignorance.  The deacon has found it important to remain anonymous, so he will simply be referred to as D.

D: I was uh, I was interested in you and your story…and your situation.  I, uh, you know I’m a believer.  I think um, I think god has my life under his control and he has a ministry for me, and he has a range of, of an area for me to minister to.  This church is in a neighborhood that is real close by the church, so, so…

J: So you feel like, I mean you feel like it’s your job or your duty to uh, let other people know that…  I, see I, I have a hard time, I mean you pretty much, you go door to door to convince other people of the way that you believe?

D: No.  Um, we do uh, outreach events like what we were doing last week was a picnic.  Just a neighborhood picnic.  And we just invite people if they want to come.  Um, we had probably two hundred or more there.  There were two or three jump houses.

J: But, I mean for what reason?  Just community?  Just to try and band the community together to get people to know each other?
 
D: Well no, it is ultimately so that (coughs), so that people know…

J: So that your congregation can grow?
D: So that people know that god is here in, in the area.  That people that represent him…
J: You use the word “know” like that’s a definite though.  You use the word “know” like; I mean when you use the word “know” you are, you are stating a fact.  A well-known, unarguable fact, and that’s not the case when it comes to any religion.  I mean because there are so many unknowns.  The whole religion aspect, the whole religious industrial complex is nothing but based on the unknown.
D: Well I mean, I could argue with, we could, we could parch every word that we speak, and I could question the existence of the religious industrial complex.  You apparently believe in that.  I, I don’t.  Um, what, what we do is, um, we do, you know, that church is planted fifty-five year, so the church is planted there.  Churches have this um, this instruction from Jesus.  Go and make disciples of all kinds of people.  Baptize them in the name of the father, the son, the Holy Spirit and teach them how um, Jesus lived.  Teach them what he commanded to live by and it’s what he called, Jesus called abundant life.  It’s, it’s a life um, in fellowship with god, fellowship with other people.   It’s a life that’s ruled by, you love god, you love your neighbor and those are the big broad commands.  You can’t go wrong by doing those two things and, and you know, not everybody will be happy with that but that’s the, the best really life probably, um, that is available.  So he said go and do this, so churches started doing that after his resurrection.
                Um, you know, the guys that followed him, there was a band of twelve and then was 120 or so who followed them and they were convinced that, they weren’t prepared for it.  I mean he, he was crucified on a cross, he died and three days later the tomb was empty and these guys were blown away at first.  They didn’t know what to make of it.  So…

J: I don’t mean to interrupt.  You’re telling me all this stuff that I already know.  I mean I already, I mean, get into some stuff, I mean…

D: Well ok, you’re asking me why I do what I do.

J: Ok.  Ok.

H:  So churches started spreading…

J: But you personally feel like you were called, like what moment, at what moment,  I mean…?  I mean that’s another problem is that one religion thinks that they have it nailed, when there are so many other religions that, you know, have been around.  Especially Christianity is one of the youngest and they have been divided by so many by just people saying, “I agree with this but I don’t agree with that so let’s start a new sect.”

D: But they all have.

J: Well yeah, I agree with that, but I mean out of Christianity, out of all the other religions, Christianity is one of the youngest and its more prominent here.  That’s why I know more, you know, Christianity.

D: My experience um, earliest I can remember when I was just a little boy, my parents weren’t really much into church but they did so once in a while.  My first memory of knowing who Jesus was, was an old, a family bible in a hall closet and I don’t know why my mom showed me that or if I found it and asked about it, but it was um, you know, just a picture of Jesus on a cross.  And a little next door neighbor girl talked about god and god’s way and we are brothers and sisters in god’s way.  So in remember when I was five, um, or so, my mom uh, getting saved at the church where we went to.  She had gotten into uh, going to church regularly and um, she was baptized so I knew this was something people did, even though I didn’t understand it.  Then uh, just not long after that my dad started going and he was saved and baptized and there was a revival and I remember that pretty vividly.  The pastor coming and preaching every night and my dad coming uh, more interested in faith.  Uh and then when I was eight um, you know I realized it was time for me.  I uh, I understood okay we have all sinned and come short the glory of god.  Jesus died for our sins and if we will accept his offered salvation, we can be cleansed of sin and we can have a relationship with him and a promise of ongoing forgiveness and all this.

J: So you have never not once, I mean, since the age of eight, questioned it or even tried to even see what other kinds of lifestyles are about or to even maybe take a timeout from that?  You know even the Amish give their fucking kids a fucking, you know, a uh, break.

D: I went through the teenage years.  I was uh, I was more caught up in the, you know, um, more of the uh, bent towards teenage living and, and sin and that kind of thing.  Um, I haven’t really abandoned the faith like some people do.  I, I do know all the questions, all the struggles, you know.  Um, I deal with this stuff all the time.  Uh, that’s, it’s just out there everywhere.  The thing is um, you know, the reason, ok, First Baptist Church planted that church so there would be a church over here in this neighborhood.  That’s fifty-five years ago, to just uh, to do that thing that Jesus said, make disciples out of people.  So…
 
J: But you’re basing this Jesus character, that is not even proven to have existed, and my whole thing is, I like to look at the history of shit, and we talk about Jesus, so from 0 to 33.
D: There’s nobody, there’s nobody that seriously questions Jesus.
J: Who doesn’t question Jesus?
D: Nobody really does.  Does anybody question George Washington?
J: But if you look at the history of it from 0 to 33, From Jesus’ lifetime, not a word was written about him.  It took another forty years, to like 70, for someone to even write his name somewhere.  If he was so important, if he did all these great things, in those seventy years, or just in those thirty-three years, why, how come it took so long to even write his name in a book?
D: Well it takes a few years for those things to happen.
J: A few years?!
D: It, it took a few years for Kennedy to become, to become known and for people to write about him.
J: For who?
D: John F. Kennedy.
J: Bullshit! (Inaudible gibberish)
D: It really wasn’t possible though in the first century.  They didn’t have the technology and that kind of thing.  The stories were there.  I mean the thing is that what we know about Jesus, the stories…
J: Factually we don’t know anything about Jesus.
D: We know as much about him as we know about Washington or Lincoln or Hitler or other historical people.  They’re so far back in time and so you have to, uh, recognize that communication was slower and it took a different form back then but, um, they’re just as historical as you know, um…
J: We can dig up a Cro-Magnon man that lived millions of years before Jesus did and tell you just about everything about that son of a bitch!
D: Well that’s all speculation.
J: Yeah it is.  I mean everything you ask, I mean if I don’t know it, if it ain’t something that I did myself, then it’s all speculation, cause I’m taking your word on it.  I didn’t do it.  If you came to me and said, “Hey such and such and such and such happened.”  I didn’t see it.  I didn’t witness it.  I’m taking your word on it.  Unless I did it with my own hands or witnessed it with the five senses that I have, you know, it’s all speculation.
D: But you can’t even trust your own mind.
J: Most times no.  Hell no.
D: I can blindfold you and I can say... Ok James, get ready.  I’m fixing to burn you so just brace yourself…
J: Oh yeah and put some ice on my…
D: …and I can touch you with an ice cube and you know, there’s, there…
J: (Inaudible interruption)…that’s what I’m more into, is trying to get to the depths of what actually, and all honesty, I believe in the whole, I don’t know uh, if you have ever heard of the stoned ape theory, but consciousness came along when uh, apes lived on the canopies of the jungles, and so they migrated down on the forest floor.  They started rummaging and eating what uh, ended up being cubensis mushrooms, psychedelic mushrooms and so therefore the primal all of the sudden became conscious.  Not just all of the sudden, but evolved, you know, into a higher state of consciousness which is more relevant to what we are now.  And among this consciousness, once you’re conscious and you’re, you’re aware of all the fears around, of all the dangers, I won’t say fears because fear wasn’t uh, a factor back then but uh, you understand now that if I fall out of this tree I might die.  That big ass cat over there might kill me.  You’re conscious of all the things, all the time.  It’s not just that, I see it and I’m running, stuff you now.  You’re conscious.  You’re conscious of all the dangers.  SO now you have to come up with this reason to be able to get through everyday life and not freak the fuck out.  And that’s where religion comes from!  And that’s what religion was based on, is they could say, “Hey ok, now that I’ve got this to look forward to, all these other dangers are, you know, they’re nothing compared to the greatness that I’m gonna achieve in the end.”  It became, it uh, uh (heavy sigh), I don’t know what’s the word?
D: Where did you get it?  Where did you get that?
J: Uh, a little bit of studying from uh, Terrence McKenna, uh and a little bit on my own.
D: Well tell me, tell me about uh, if you don’t mind uh, ok I was saved at eight years old.
J: Yes sir.  I think I was saved at thirteen.
D: I uh, I had this sense of purpose, of calling, of obligation, of responsibility almost immediately.
J: Really?  See I’ve never once.  I will grant Christians that.  They do and it is, and I hate to use the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’, cause I won’t call you ignorant, I mean cause people believe, I mean it takes different strokes to move the world and that’s all there is to it.  People believe different things.  If everybody believed the same thing it would be a boring ass world out there.  I mean it would just be, but to have something so, you know, to have what you call “to know”, to know that so concretely that you are so comfortable with it and your life revolves around that and you know so concretely that’s what’s gonna happen after all this is said and done with I mean, I mean that would be amazing. 
D: When I, when I said, you know, these people in this neighborhood, they see consistently that this church is here.  This church helps them.  This church cares about them.  This church brings their kids to Awana.  This church sometimes pays their light bills.
 
J: Community is good.
D: Over and over and over they come to rely on that.  They come to count on it.  They come to bank on it.
J: That’s bad.
D: But that’s what I mean by knowing.  Just like you say I know um, it’s hot out there today.  Well it might suddenly change, but it’s not likely to.  That’s what, I mean knowing is always going to be a, a relative thing.  Um, so anyway…
J: But there are some hardcore facts.  If we’re living in the universe, we’re not, I mean, if you don’t wanna jump into the whole quantum mechanics and the multiverse shit…
D: I’m not qualified for that.
J: If we’re living in the right here, right now, there are certain knowns though.  I’m a solid object.  You’re a solid object.  I’m a male.  You’re a male, you know.  The law of gravity.  If I walk outside and just decide to let my feet go, my face is going to hit the concrete.  I know that.
D: Yeah, so I mean people know (church name deleted) and they know (___) um, people have a good, generally a good opinion about (___) in this neighborhood because the church has been, you know, faithful to, just been a good presence here…
J: So you’re concerned more about your church than maybe the religion itself?
D: Nah, I’m concerned about you.  If you really went through this conversion at thirteen…
J: That wasn’t a conversion.  It was, that’s what my family did.  My great, my great grandma was one of them.  Her husband was a hardcore, one of those hellfire and brimstone, I never met the man but he…
D: He was a pastor?
J: Yeah.  Yeah, in uh, Bassett, TX.  I think its Bassett.  Bassett or Domino, I can’t remember.  It was, my dad, he was a real big influence on my dad and so my dad was southern Baptist, and his mom was southern Baptist, and we would you know, we weren’t forced to go to church all the time but you know, it was ‘Hey you need to uh, to be going to church.’  And of course my whole reason was, being thirteen, I met a little old girl that went to church and that was my whole reason.  I, I can’t say that any given day in my life, even through my youth, that there was honestly a day that I truly believed that Jesus was there with me or anything like that.  I went through the steps because my family did it, up to a certain age…
D: Well I mean um, I won’t tell you that god woke me up in the night and said that I want you to go to the home of James Beasley and tell him about me, but I think, generally that’s what’s this is, um, god getting your attention through me.
J: There’s too many people around this small ass town trying to uh, convert somebody who seems to be a demon.  I don’t know.  There’s a lot of closed minded people in this town.
D: the thing is um, we, we will go around and invite people and they will come, maybe they will have fun, maybe they will listen and some people can come and join our church and get baptized but, but you know, once in a while, I don’t really get people that wanna talk like you talk.  Most the people just say thanks and they go on.  Um, but…
J: I thought we we’re honestly gonna get into a good debate about factual stuff, but I mean I understand.  I mean conversations are , I like healthy conversations period.  I like healthy conversations with knowledgeable people.  There’s nothing more, there’s nothing I hate more than sitting here with somebody that I would truly call ignorant and try and hold a decent conversation.
D: Um yeah, I don’t know.  I mean…
J: I’m judgmental.  That’s uh, and I, and I work on my flaws.  I honestly do but I don’t uh, shadow them by any means.  I put them out front and that way I can focus on them a lot.
D: Um anyway, you know I uh, I see, I see enough um, what I consider answers to prayers that I think are, that I think god is there.  I think he has answered my prayers.  I think that he is watching out for me.  I uh, 2009, November 2nd um, my wife was in Pennsylvania and she came home and I picked her up at the airport and we stopped at uh, uh, Cotton’s on interstate, ate supper.  On the way home, we got to Caddo Valley, I’m on the right, there’s a truck on the left, an eighteen-wheeler.  I cannot believe what I’m seeing in my rearview mirror.  This headlight on this truck moving over, moving over, surely he sees me.  He doesn’t see me.  The next thing I know we are stuck to the front of that truck going sideways up the interstate.  I thought there’s no way you come out of that.  Um and the first thing, I mean so I just, I knew.  I didn’t pray out loud.  I just prayed.
J: (Laughs) There’s no atheists in foxholes.  Isn’t that what they say?
D: (Laughs) Yeah, true but I’m, you know, I’m far from (inaudible over laughter)…in fact I’ve been, I mean you know life is challenging enough.  It’s challenging for all of us.  So I’m going through times, not long before that, where I’m saying, you know, god if you can show me some conformation that I’m where you need me to be, doing what you need me to do um, I’m ready for it.  I didn’t really expect that, but what happened was this truck pushed us sideways six hundred feet or so up the interstate.  We didn’t run into anybody.  We didn’t turn over.  We didn’t burn up.  We didn’t do anything.  That thing finally came to a stop over on the side and we got out.  The people behind us, who saw it happen, first thing they said was, you know, “God must have some reason for keeping you alive.”  And you know other people said, “Boy ya'll are lucky.”  I don’t believe in luck.  I believe in providence.  I believe that god takes care of me.  He has taken care of me uh, plenty of times.  Keeps me outta trouble.
J: But how does it work for all those heathens like me though?
(Laughs)
D: It’s also, ah, he causes his son to rise on the (inaudible).
J: And I come out and ungrateful bastard and…
D: I don’t know.  I think you’re a little more open than (inaudible)…
 
J: I’m open.  See I got this idea, I’m 99.9% sure there was no Jesus Christ.  Now I will never say there wasn’t a creator.  We got here some fucking how.  Whether it started as an intelligent something that sent something a swirl, I don’t know.  Whether it was just stardust that collided together and everything just happened by coincidence, I don’t know.  To me I don’t think you necessarily need a Jesus Christ god to have uh, intelligent design.  I mean because if you look at like the Fibonacci series and the golden ration and phi, all those mathematical, I mean I’ve heard, I can’t remember, it was either Tesla or Einstein that said that uh, god wrote the language of the earth in math or something like that.  I can’t remember uh, that’s not verbatim or anything like that but I mean it’s there in sunflowers, pinecones uh, the nautilus.  You know everything; the cycle of everything is in some kind of mathematical order.
D: So you think that supports the idea of some creator organized it?
J: Some architect or some creator of some sort.  Some, it had to have at least some idea.  So it had to be a conscious energy source.  That’s all I can say and apparently an imaginative uh, conscious energy source, cause there are some pretty crazy, you know, there’s some pretty, I mean and I’m one of them people that take, I don’t take the sunset and shit like that for granted.  I’m awed by the beauty on this earth.
D: But what is it, what is it that makes you question, you, because there’s just, like I say…
J: Religion as a whole has condemned it for me.  Religion, the actions of all religions from all the hundreds of thousands of years, up till now, have condemned any sort of belief or any kind of following, any kind of respectability for organized religion, much the same as government has.
D: What, what is it?  Ok let’s just talk about this idea that Jesus existed.
J: Ok, just a man with that kind of power that was the son of god?
D: Well there’s nobody really serious who says Jesus didn’t exist.  Now there’s people who think…
J: I’m serious.  I’m just as serious as Stephen Hawkins.  I don’t give a goddamn about his credentials or nothing.  I am human just like he is.
D: Stephen Hawkins said Jesus didn’t exist?
J: Nah.  No I’m saying I’m just, I’m, I don’t have to have the I.Q. or the credibility of Stephen Hawkins.
D: But you really, you really, really need to have somebody who’s in your camp who says uh, Jesus didn’t…
J: I’m sure I can gather a few of ‘em.  I know I can.
D: You need to because there’s not very many people.  Educated people, give me some people who have…
At this point, half drunk and forever stoned, our author seems to just ramble off names with no research to prove his point.  This happens more often than not.
J: Graham uh, well graham Hancock uh, let’s see uh, I haven’t really heard uh, Joe Rogan’s whole theory on this.  Terrence McKenna uh, let’s see, David Icke.  David Icke is a big…
D: Let me tell you what’s a lot more common.  There’s, there’s a lot of people for centuries who have said, “Now there was a Jesus but he was normal and he was regular and he lived and he died and he, you had this uh, you know, he had this following and after he died, they built him up and they made up stories.”  Nobody denies there was a Jesus.  Nobody really serious denies that there is a Jesus.  The, the thing is, these guys uh, they are a part of history just like Napoleon and Lincoln and Washington.  They’re, they’re real people.  Um, they’re two thousand years behind us but uh, that’s not very far.
J: Not in the scheme of things, it’s nothing.
D: These books that were written about Jesus were written; they started being written during the time that there were still people around that could remember him.  There were lots and lots of other books written.  There’s tons of books out there, religious books, and the church said, “I believe Matthew, Mark and Luke and John and Romans and Hebrews…”
J: And they don’t include Enoch in there.
D: Because they don’t, they’re fake!  You said it’s all fake.  They said no it’s not all fake but here’s some that is.
J: But how, alright, well how come in Genesis it talks of the fallen Nephilim and then that’s all they will give you.  Maybe like a couple books later they’ll, they’ll touch on like how they were in love with the uh, sons, or the daughters of men and or uh, how they bred with the daughters of men and that’s only another one little line and then you find this book of Enoch and it has nothing to do but the Nephilim.  I mean it describes what they did, what they taught the humans, how they bred with the humans.  Why mention it, mention their name in one part of the book and entice you enough to you know, and not give the whole story?
D: There’s a lot of reason why the church did not accept the book of Enoch.   Not just because of what it said.  The books that they first of all accepted were books that they felt like, ok John…  Well they believe John wrote this book and John was an apostle.  They believe Matthew wrote this book.  Matthew was an apostle.  They believe Mark wrote this book.  Mark wasn’t an apostle but Mark was real close to Peter.  Peter was an apostle.  He was there with Jesus, an eyewitness to Jesus and that’s where this starts.  These guys who they, they knew Jesus personally then they saw him die.  Then they saw him alive again and that’s where, that’s where the beginning trust starts, with people who died sticking to their story.  You can do what you want to me.  I’m not, this is true.  I can’t help it.  It’s true.  You can kill me if you need to but it’s still true.  So you got people like Matthew and Peter and um, uh, you know John as, those three or four.  You got those other twelve who um, we don’t have any book by them.  James, James wrote one, um but the church knew that they had known Jesus and they were put to death as martyrs you know.  Uh, sticking to their story and that’s why the second generation of church leaders um, they believe that, it’s like you knew some guy maybe, maybe your grandpa knew Robert E. Lee.  Now I’m just making that up but you know you would believe what your grandpa said about Robert E. Lee because he lived there and worked under him.  I used to have uh, an eighth grade history teacher, Arkansas history teacher, who had uh, supposedly been uh, uh, FBI agent in an earlier life, knew J. Edgar Hoover.  That’s pretty cool you know.  So this is how this uh, New Testament stuff gets going.
 
J: But also, and, and that’s a problem though.  Do you believe everything people tell you?  Even if they’re accredited, I mean the news and our politicians and our medical professionals and shit, I mean they prove this point over and over again that just because you have a title or doctorate doesn’t mean you’re any more honest than I am.
D: I think, I think you tend to believe people you have grown to know and trust.  That’s the kind of people these were.  Um, people just wouldn’t haul off and trust this guy because he walked in off the street and said, “I’m an apostle.”  They trusted him because they knew him for a long time.  They saw what he did and it’s kinda, you build up a line of trust, a line of credit with people.  I mean and so you know that’s why we have the New Testament.  They kept the books that they were convinced that really had the truth about the story of Jesus and what Jesus taught.  Uh, of course most of the New Testament is written by Paul and um, Luke knew him and traveled with him and uh, saw these things going on and wrote about them.  Um, anyway it’s, it’s, it’s the kind of thing that’s a lot more normal then I think what you are envisioning it to be.  It’s just…
A huge leap is made here by the author in some addled attempt to make an argument.
J: Well I take, you talk about normal’s ass when you open the book of Revelations and if you wanna read that like a literal, like god said this shit is really gonna happen.  I mean you’re gonna see seven headed beasts and shit like this and stuff like that then you to go back, revert and take the whole book, I mean look at the whole fantastical situation.
D: There’s the kind of literature that’s sort of written in code.  Christians are on the inside.  They understand the code.  They know the symbols.  You’re in a time of persecution.  Romans are persecuting Christians.  John wants to give his churches a message.  It’s a message that says basically this is um, if you remain faithful, god is going to come through and um, you deliver you one way or another.  Either you’ll go to heaven or you’ll be delivered when he comes, returns.  Um, you know if, if you deny the faith you will be disappointed and that’s the message basically through Revelations.  Revelations…
J: So it’s more symbolic than it is literal?
D: It is.   It’s like a coded message.  Uh, the letters to the seven churches, the lampstands, you know the beasts and all these things, there things that those Christians in the first century would have recognized out of the Old Testament passages.
J: Ok so it’s not nothing that we really have the knowledge about now, that’s why so many people are trying to make predictions?
D: People, there’s a lot of controversy over Relations.
J: Yeah.  That’s the book that caught you know, I’m a, I don’t know, I’m a huge Hunter Thompson fan and he praises the book of Revelations just because of the literary value it has, and it honestly does if you look at it as a fantastical story, it’s a fantastical story.
D: But it basically says what the prophets were saying thousands, a thousand years before that god is gonna, ok this world is in the grip of sin and it’s gonna run its course and then god, at the right time, when he’s, when his time frame is up, he’s gonna call an end to it and he’s gonna clean it all up and start it all over and we are going into eternity.  The Old Testament prophets believed that and said it and wrote it.  Jesus also said the same thing and then John at the end Revelations, at the end of the New Testament times; he’s the last living disciple…
J: Was John the apostle, the same guy who wrote the book of John, the same guy that wrote Revelations?
D: I believe so.  Now not everybody does.
J: Yeah not everybody does.
D: Conservative scholars believe that yeah this is the same guy.  He’s recognized by the church you know; he’s the old man now.  He’s in exile and he’s uh, sending a word of comfort and encouragement to remain faithful to all of these seven churches there around that uh, that little area.  So um, basically he’s just saying again what those prophets have been saying for hundreds of years.  In the end, god’s gonna wrap this thing up.  Remain faithful, don’t give up.
J: It’s those drastic fear measures that they use in that book.
D: It’s bizarre imagery.
J: It’s really just that book.  The rest of the bible is, I mean it’s not that fearful.  It’s not that fearful.  Even the New Testament, I mean the Old Testament you know, it’s not that you know, those people probably deserved…I agree with the people that if you can’t handle your shit, I mean you need to be dead or if you’re a bad person, you know shit like that.  I, I believe if you take it, take it like you do, god did, he was just.  He was just then.  The New Testament they say he’s more forgiven.  There’s not a lot of hate or you know any of that fantastical stuff going on until you get to Revelations.
D: Well uh, basically Revelations says that the bad guys get what’s coming to them and if you remain faithful you won’t be sorry.  But god has always been just, but he’s also always been merciful.
J: You think so?
D: Yeah, he doesn’t give us what we deserve.
J: You think the first original sin we did, we didn’t deserve?  We got one warning.  We fucked up and then we got kicked out, banished period.  There wasn’t no, “Ok, alright you know ya’ll fucked up.  I understand.   You made a mistake, you got influenced by this outside source, alright, just don’t do it again.”  Nah, that motherfucker said, “Get out!  Get out now!  Get out now!”  And gave apparently, woman a lifetime of, I mean a whole, every generation from now until the end of humanity, have to suffer from menstrual cramps and, and that’s some crazy vindictive shit going on there.
D: Well, I mean he created, he created humans perfect.  All he, all he raised is two people.
J: Ok.  Ok.  Timeout, you have to get me straight on this ok.  So, ok, in the beginning when he created people he, he created people perfect right?  Is that what you just said, right?
D: Yes.
J: Ok, so at that time they had no knowledge whatsoever.  Once you gain insight or have a choice decision then you can’t be perfect.
D: Uh, I don’t necessarily know how you would prove that one.  Ok.  There’s one way you can mess up and only one way.  There’s two of us.  I’m Adam, you’re Eve or vice versa.
J: It doesn’t matter.
D: Ok, we’ve got everything we need.  We’ve got everything we could want…
J: But it’s in human nature to want.
D: There’s one thing…it’s not in human nature yet.  There’s one thing that, keep it off limits, and ok, god made us in his image.  God has freewill, so god says, “Ok, you’re gonna be in my image then you have to have freewill, but the only way for it to be free is there is an option for you to go against what I want.”
J: See and that’s imperfect.  That’s not perfection.  You’re, that makes you fallible.  Therefore you’re not in the image of god.
D: They could have said no.
J: But god would’ve, but god would have never said yes.
D: And this, and, and, so god has always told you the truth, has always done what you needed, always been there for you and he says, “Trust me you don’t wanna do this.  If you do this you will be really sorry, it’s gonna ruin everything forever.  Don’t do this.”  And here’s this serpent or Satan in this form says, “God just doesn’t want you to have fun…”
J: Yeah, but you said god made them in his image.  He, they were perfect.
D: That’s what the bible says.
J: Ok.  Ok, but they were perfect in his image?  Would god have been corrupted by that snake?
D: No.
J: Then how could they have been perfect in his image if they were allowed to be corrupted by that snake?  They were already flawed from the get go.  If corruption was allowed to be even introduced to them…
D: Well I, there’s really again, um…
J: That’s logic.  That’s just plain here and there logic.
D: Again I don’t, I don’t really have an answer for you there.
                This is the best stopping point I could find for the first part.  Once again, I have done my best to edit the recording, given no guide.  I expect there to be at least two more parts.  I can only reduce his ramblings so much.  Please do forgive me.  Until I can muster up the strength to finish this rotten assignment, you will just have to chew on this.
 
Constantly concerned,
Stockton Riggs
 
 
 
 
 

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