"MY GOD, IT'S FULL OF STARS."
A few words on Jesus.

Seriously.



Where are you all going?

If you're still reading this you must be one dedicated and patient person, either that or you're officially too stoned to move and hit the"home" link on your web-browser. See, I don't believe in the Jesus that most Christians, Catholics and Mormons do. This may shock you but I have a differing perspective on the teachings of the Bible than many.

Now, here I could launch into a David Cross-inspired agnostic tirade about what COMPLETE AND UTTER FANTASY the stories in the Bible are. I won't though, that's below the high-level of intellectual stimuli I try to provide here at theartofdansilver.com. And, frankly, it's below me as well. Also, I won't bother to dissect every piece of The Book as it's redundant. Instead, I'll just speak of everybody's main-man: The J.C.

I happen to believe that Jesus was a real person who spoke some daring stuff in a time of great theocratic oppression and tyranny. I believe that his words rang true with many people and sparked a great movement of minds and beliefs, one so great that a huge empire fell as a direct result of it.

But, please, the son of God? Are you fucking kidding me?

Let me get this straight, God has one son but we are all God's children? God, who created the UNIVERSE and, wait, let's get off topic here for a moment and address the issue of the UNIVERSE a little...

The UNIVERSE is everything. The limit, or lack thereof, of time, space, knowledge, light, dark, heat, cold and all the other stuff I didn't list. Everything. Infinity (as far as we know). I'll elaborate.

We live in a Galaxy called The Milky Way. The Milky Way Galaxy is the home to our Solar System (that's our Sun, which is one star, and the planets and celestial junk in orbit around it) and an estimated two hundred to four hundred BILLION other stars. Those stars also have items in orbit around them (i.e.-planets). The Milky Way Galaxy is about one hundred thousand light-years in diameter and estimated to weigh seven hundred and fifty billion to one trillion times the weight of our sun.

For sake of comparison, as I understand that astronomy is rather involved, I'll describe the size of our galaxy in a different way. If one was to count to one billion at a rate of one number per second it would take thirty-one years, two hundred and fifty-one days, seven hours, forty-six minutes and thirty-nine seconds. Now, imagine taking one of our Suns, which dwarfs Earth many times and, for every second you count, stacking a Sun like apples in the grocery store. Keep stacking until you stack one billion Suns (which will take a little under thirty-two years, provided you have some good fire-proof gloves). Now, after you are finished, take a leak, grab a bite and repeat the process seven hundred and fifty times. You've now reached the minimum estimated weight or mass of our galaxy only.

Our galaxy is part of a cluster of galaxies known as the Local Group. This group is a composite of three large galaxies, including the Milky Way (which is the second largest) and thirty smaller galaxies. The Hubble Space telescope, which is currently the best tool astronomers have for observing space, has cataloged over three thousand galaxies in observable range. That's on a patch of visibility so small that we would need twenty-seven million of said patches to fill the entire sky. However, it's calculated that the Hubble is capable, under prime conditions, of detecting about eighty billion galaxies.

Remember that counting to one billion thing? Imagine the amount of Suns, planets, nebulas, etc. in the known Universe. That's a bunch of zeros.

So, Earth is the only place that we know for sure that can sustain life. Of course, we still haven't been able to fully explore our own solar system. Considering the fact that we can safely assume there are numerous planets orbiting some, if not all, of those two hundred to four hundred billion stars in our own galaxy alone, I think we can safely assume that there is a prospect that life exists somewhere else in the Universe. Earth and its inhabitants are barely one drop of water in the ocean of planets.

I'm not a huge X-Files fan. I don't believe in UFO's. I'm not big into conspiracies. In fact, I'm a pretty moderate guy. Considering that, I pose this question to those members of humanity wrought with belief in Jesus:

Isn't it just a tad arrogant to proclaim him ruler of all we know when we don't, as of yet, know shit? Did Jesus decide that black holes were going to be the ultimate victors over gravity and have the ability to consume stars, distort time and put giant rifts in space while he was going to hang here and get tortured to death? Am I to believe that one guy is the heir to all of that which I just described when, for all we know, it's filled with trillions of other beings? And maybe, just maybe, isn't it possible that God could give a shit about humans? Perhaps God looks at us like some failed science project, the bridge made of hot glue and popsicle sticks that couldn't hold the teacher? Could we be the soap-box racer that only had three wheels and tipped over on the first turn? Maybe God hates us and is going to send hurricanes, tsunamis, global-warming, war, famine and Friends reunions to us until we finally die.


I think organized religions with its profits, martyrs and saviors serve a purpose. We need to be taught morality so we can function in society, with others. The power of myth is great. However, in light of organized religion's record of accomplishment in spawning wars and death on a mass scale, I have a tendency to believe that there may be other, less damaging, ways of going about that task.

I'm not advocating religion be abolished. If you want a religion, have a ball, spend every day in church. If it enriches your life and helps your day to day, go to it. But let's keep some perspective, mortals who may have been but probably weren't speaking on behalf of the one true God wrote those sacred books. That said, mere mortals are idiots (if Washington and Hollywood are any examples) and the only thing worse than plain idiots is delusional, self-righteous idiots in large groups (again, same examples).

We need new texts or revised texts. Bibles, Korans, Torahs, and Whatevers with big warning labels on them, like they put on my precious tobacco and liquor. Labels that say "WARNING: THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK ARE NOT TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY AND ARE MEANT AS METAPHORICAL EXAMPLES AND STORIES TO BE LOGICALLY ANALYSED AND DIGESTED IN THE CONTEXT OF RATIONAL SCIENCE, AS DENOTED IN THE RELEVANT SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY. USE WITH CARE."

That should be a start.


Oh, by the way, get the fuck off my porch you pushy, delusional fucks.
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