Freeing God from Religion

By Clifford Ratzlaff

If you tend to shake your head when you read religious literature, please read this book. I invite being disagreed with; I welcome debate and do not object to being told I am wrong.

The question remains: Who has the right religion? Despite being an octogenarian when presumably all should be settled and nailed down, I now challenge the theology I nodded to so vigorously in a previous time of my life. What I once assumed as truth is now open to the kind of tough scrutiny I had never dared engage in. My theological life scripts were deeply rooted and beyond challenge. Born and raised in a fundamentalist Mennonite conservative evangelical community, doubting and questioning were considered acts of sin. Even though we were good ethical people, we were repaganized every year by visiting English speaking evangelists and getting saved was an annual event. I know; I did it three times before I was fifteen.

I include a simple caveat. Once you start critiquing and investigating your beliefs, even the most cherished, you will find that you cannot go back. The very act of questioning intensifies the importance of the question. Millions of books exist about God; every book written by a human being (mostly men). Over twenty five miles of shelves with books about God are in the archives under the Vatican. I had fifteen shelves with many books that talk about God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jul 27, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466947849

Clifford Ratzlaff

I, Clifford Nelson Ratzlaff, an octogenarian of 88 years, am doing what could be described as an act of defiance. I am defying the idea that it is best for old people to shut up and start their rocking chairs. I believe I have something to say about the human spiritual condition on planet Earth. This is a revision of a previous book entitled FREEING GOD FROM RELIGION. In this revision I make a sharp differentiation between religion and theology. I use Gestalt Psychology ideas about Figure/Ground perceptual dynamics to show that religion is spiritual stuff and theology is human male stuff about spirituality. Briefly my curriculum vitae include two undergraduate degrees in Psychology, an M.Sc degree in Counselling Psychology, and a Ph.D. in the same discipline. I was privileged to learn to know Dr. Gene Kasper at KSTC, Emporia, Kansas, back in 1965. With no hesitatioin I credit him with giving me information about the professional hazards of Transference and Counter transference in the therapy hour. It was Gene who came to me after a session behind the glass wall, with a very significant message, "Cliff wake up; you're headed for big troubles unless you learn how to handle client/therapist relationship issues in the counseling hour" He proceeded to teach me how to handle situations in which a client falls in love with her therapist. I have never forgotten that hour of epiphany. Then too during my Ph.D. studies I was privileged to have Dr. Willard Blaesser as my committee chairman. Willard was a man of amazing empathy and gentleness. He encouraged me, corrected me, and wished me well as we left ASU with graduate degrees. There is also one more person who contributed very extensively to my development. He was Pius Wakatama of Zimbabwe. Once a student of mine in teacher education, Pius became a widely read provocateur type journalist in a regime headed by Mugabe, a heavy handed dictator. I have asked Pius to say a few things about me. "To those who knew you from those days when you were in Zimbabwe, your name became a household name. So many ask me about you and are so happy when I tell them you are well . You are regarded as part of the Zimbabwe revolution. You were so different from all the other missionaries. You may not believe this but those who know you regard you as highly as they do all the liberal minded whites who worked for the true development of African people. You did not see us as savages to be civilized, evangelized and exploited , but as homo-sapiens like any other. You were very meaningful to us all". (Pius Wakatama) Nothing unusual qualifies me to write as I do in this anthology of essays. Interest per se, experience and reading books have produced in me a sense of awarenress of human "Ursachen" that I find both bewildering and inviting. I was thrilled to read about homosapiens experiences of spirituality that are the same around the world; whether the Zambezi valley or Wall street. To be human is to be spiritual. When I saw it I woke up to the awareness that I had something to say about human spirituality.My last chapter, FREED BY EPIPHANIES, adresses this awareness. When one can allow imprinting of epiphanal sayings and then keep them in mental readiness for instantant recall, life becomes exiting to live. Do my sensitivites show? Yes they do; and they are evidence that at times, reenergized memories bring back the pain and sadness of a previous day. But this sensitivity has also been the key to my effectiveness as a psychotherapist. As I am sensitive to me own experiences, I have been sensitive to those who have shared their lives with me is session. Often I have felt a deep stirring of love and compassion for hurting people; and done that without "falling in love" with any. If they andswered "Yes" to my invitation to tell me their story, they would begin and within minutes tears would flow; too often in my eyes too. They accepted my tears as I did their's.

Book preview

Contents

DEDICATION

ABOUT CLIFF RATZLAFF

INTRODUCTION

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

#11

#12

#13

#14

#15

#16

#17

DEDICATION

This is a revised edition of my book Human Values Trump Religious Creed (2010) and has been given a new title: Freeing God From Religion. I again dedicate this to the memory of our departed daughter, Judith Elaine Ratzlaff, born on March 16, 1964 and deceased on Sept 21, 1999.

Judi loved children, miniature horses, puppies, her friends and her family, and she loved teaching. She wanted a heaven that had horses, dogs, green grass, shovels, riding rings, wheel barrows, hay forks, and all the rest that goes with horse culture. Her legacy includes an unpublished coil bound manuscript, entitled Scars to Stars: A Self Esteem Program for Children. In this regard the word scars is significant. No she was not scarred physically or emotionally to our knowledge; but she understood scarred children who came to her classroom, and in that way shared their hurts. Judi understood woundedness. She must have taught this to her school pupils, for when she died, hundreds of messages were received telling us of how she had become an angel. Also in terminal grief was her little dog Moki, for when she died, he grieved beyond amelioration and died shortly after.

Her grave marker A WOUNDED HEALER is borrowed from the title of the book written by Henri Nouwen, THE WOUNDED HEALER". Her brief life was a benediction to hundreds of her students, fellow teachers, friends, her brother Barry, Jana three nephews, Judah, Joshua, Joel and niece, Kylie; and to us her parents. Our Judi, was a magnificent human being who left us too soon. I do not say this irreverently, but I would like a few words with our creator about children dying before their parents.

But I also dedicate this book to Barry, my son, to Jana his wife, and our four grandchildren. Then I acknowledge my spiritual indebtedness to 13 soul mates in a study group we were in for ten years. They are John and Sally Guggenheimer, Lorne and Kay Dick, Bernie and Dolores Martins, Linda Matties, Tina Draward, Helen Franz (deceased) and Arno and Leese Penner. Then too I recognize my nephews and nieces, Donna Magee, Lloyd Ratzlaff, Bruce Ratzlaff, Dennis Ratzlaff, Eileen Bowes, Ted Ratzlaff away up there in the north country, and all those with whom I have discussed these ideas. I love them all profoundly, and, in the will of God, still hope to spend eternity with them.

I say a great big thanks to my wife Jeanette. These essays have been in the making for fifteen (probably more) years, and many times she has simply smiled at me and said, Cliff you just keep on thinking all the time; don’t you? Yes my dear that’s the way I’ve been built. Jeanette has read these essays, has suggested many times that I need not be polemic or scolding, but alas that’s the way I sounded at various places. I do not object to simplicity in theology, but frankly I am repulsed by lunacy. To still believe that the Earth is flat and supported by four pillars is exemplary of such idiocy. Succinctly, I am revolted by religious fundamentalism of all stripes. The Bible is God’s word, and they believe every word of it. After all, God wrote the Bible! Now didn’t He?

ABOUT CLIFF RATZLAFF

On February 23, 1929, I was born as the twelfth child in the home of John Andrew Ratzlaff/Thiessen and Elizabeth Schmidt/Unruh. Our home was situated six miles north west of Waldheim, Saskatchewan; a Mennonite village that was named after a village in Southern Russia from where my great-grandparents emigrated in the late 19th century.

After the usual completion of elementary and secondary school and after earning a B.A. degree in Psychology from the University of Saskatchewan, I began independent life as a school teacher in Saskatchewan as well as 10 years of teaching in Zimbabwe, Africa. During furloughs and after disconnecting from the NGO (TEAM) that sponsored us, I completed requirements for another undergraduate degree, a B.Ed., in Educational Psychology, also from the university of Saskatchewan, an M.Sc., from Kansas State Teachers College, Emporia and a Ph.D. from Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A. Just before my last year in B.A. studies, on Sept 12, 1953, I married Jeanette Violet Anderson, who already had earned a B.A. in medical technology, and who graciously allowed me to carry on studies while she earned food and rent money as a laboratory technologist in Saskatoon City Hospital.

After graduate studies I worked for 2 and ½ years as an assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon campus, and then worked for the federal government as chief psychologist in a mental hospital associated with federal Corrections in Abbotsford, B.C. Then followed thirty five years of work in our own psychological services clinic situated in Abbotsford, B.C. Canada.

They were good years in which we felt we were successful as professional psychologists, but also, during which time, an unanticipated and unpredicted critiquing and restructuring of all things spiritual occurred. I owe a lot to Jeanette, who I freely acknowledge is farther down this spiritual journey than I am, but also to my son Barry with whom I increasingly find kindred spirit and thought about these issues. This book grew over fifteen years but became very significant, to the point of an obsession, after our 35 year old adopted daughter Judith Elaine died in 1999. She, too, was a school teacher with an M.A. degree in Educational Leadership from the University of Portland. The agony of losing a child is too difficult to describe. It seemed everything about life became distorted and insufferably challenged so that writing was the only way I felt I could get at the amalgam of grief, disempowerment, drastic and unanswerable questions about what is called human dasein. In this book of essays I attempt to deal with these issues. What is Homo sapiens? Why is Homo Sapiens? How are we in this world, this planet Earth? Is God for real? What does one make of the life of Yeshua of Nazareth? A religion? Surely that is the last thing he would have wanted. How did it all become a religion? Mehr Licht bitte!

To write this book has meant coming out of the closet and to open myself to ongoing apprehension that those who knew and loved me as a born again Christian, will probably raise their eye brows in shock when they read about my journey of discovery and expansion. Views of God, humanity and the world keep on changing and I appeal to my readers as Emerson did, namely that you love me anyhow, for if you do, we are both doing what Yeshua said we ought. If you can’t do it, we will stick with the journey as we interpret it. Mostly people are happy when they hear about changes in economics, government, travel, food, health and other concerns; but are NOT happy to hear about changes in religion. I challenge Muslims to change their mind about Jihad. It is vicious unconscionable lunacy. Drop it and be human. Would you really want Sharia Law rather than our Canadian charter of Human Rights and Freedoms? Similarly our Western leaders must be challenged to drop war-mongering, hegemony, disarm ALL nuclear arms, and stop defamation of governance they do not agree with. Incidentally it is basically a mistake to suggest that the Sermon on the Mount is a religious statement. It is not, it is a way of life.

In this book I deal with how ideas about God and the world were discovered, learned when we were children, while growing, and then, after stabilizing, we once again started to change and expand our thought lives for the rest of the journey. Echoing the writings of Erich Fromm, my a priori thesis is that "Being" trumps Having. When Homo sapiens became self conscious, or God conscious as Deepak Chopra describes it, a good thing happened, a very good thing happened. Homo sapiens was hard wired with potential to have a good experience in life. Life is good if we discover that we are good in essence, and that we can live good ethical lives.

I was trained as a psychologist in secular universities. Today I recall how, early in my career, I eschewed the nomenclature Christian Psychology. Not only did my kindly disposed, graduate committee chairman advise me to never identify myself thus, I knew that if I did I would be caught in the John 3:16 expectation. There would have to be an open Bible during our sessions. I did not go there. There are problems that do not have John 3:16 answers.

I encourage you to disagree with me, and I know many will; but please, please do so agreeably. I am nobody’s enemy. The book is my attempt to welcome you into the pleasures of being live human beings. Freud’s principle of pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain is the most basic of human drives and has for me become leit-motif. My brother Art once said to me, Cliff, I have been rich; I have been poor. I prefer rich. Similarly I say, I have been happy, I have been in misery. I prefer happy. The reader will find a strong inclination toward Gellasenheit and detachment. In my son’s home there is a wall motto that reads It is what it is. If you are not a thinking person, read it anyhow, and then give it to someone who is. Cliff Ratzlaff

INTRODUCTION

If you tend to shake your head when you read religious literature, please read this book. I invite being disagreed with; I welcome debate and do not object to being told I am wrong.

The question remains: Who has the right religion? Despite being an octogenarian when presumably all should be settled and nailed down, I now challenge the theology I nodded to so vigorously in a previous time of my life. What I once assumed as truth is now open to the kind of tough scrutiny I had never dared engage in. My theological life scripts were deeply rooted and beyond challenge. Born and raised in a fundamentalist Mennonite conservative evangelical community, doubting and questioning were considered acts of sin. Even though we were good ethical people, we were repaganized every year by visiting English speaking evangelists and getting saved was an annual event. I know; I did it three times before I was fifteen.

I include a simple caveat. Once you start critiquing and investigating your beliefs, even the most cherished, you will find that you cannot go back. The very act of questioning intensifies the importance of the question. Millions of books exist about God; every book written by a human being (mostly men). Over twenty five miles of shelves with books about God are in the archives under the Vatican. I had fifteen shelves with many books that talk about God.

Consider the three expressions: I was a Christian, I am a Christian, I will be a Christian. Do the verbs in these three assertions really make any difference. Would God, if there is one, care what verb was used?

In the development of the Homo sapiens neocortex, whether in one explosive moment or over a period of time, a significant correlate of this development was the implant of an intuition construct regarding the I am experience. At some point in time, Homo sapiens said those words, and then added, I wonder if you are like I am and if there is a great I AM beyond us? This intuition of God as the great I AM is universal—we all have it, whether we were a Christian, still are, or plan to become one. Atheists have it, agnostics do, skeptics do, wise or foolish do. The naked Iriyan Jayan or the furred Eskimo have it.

The process of intuition however must not be confused with the content of intuition, even though the I AM part of intuition is factual. But if there is validity in the extended content of the intuitional field, remains unproven. Are there events that are authentically mysterious? Do myths point at anything? What about dreams, creative thinking, premonitions, prophecies? The existence of God is just such an unanswerable question that occurs in intuition. From the beginning of our experience of intuition, the questions have included that most basic one, Is God real? If He is, what is He like, and what am I like?

There is no question that cosmology in Biblical times was primitive and incomplete even though diligently observed by the Inca Indians. God was a one planet God, sitting on a throne, just a bit too high for ordinary eyes to see. The Earth that God had created in 6 days was flat, held up by four pillars. Hell was down below the earth and heaven just above where man could see. Geocentrism was the only explanation for how the world of stars, moon, clouds and sun went. Martin Luther called Copernicus a fool for saying that the earth went around the sun; after all Joshua made the sun stand still, and even go back a bit. Cosmology of antiquity was not in error, it was just incomplete—and it still is incomplete today. Just as scientific cosmology is incomplete, theology is also incomplete; it is still developing.

Atheists deny the existence of God, but accept that humans have a level of mental functioning called intuition. They agree that thought about God is one such content of intuition. It is simply there. Sigmund Freud, an atheist, the controversial father of Psychoanalysis, said that religion (where one commonly thinks of as finding information about God) is toxic and an opiate for humanity. Yet his own Unconscious construct was similar to intuition. Carl Jung also recognized the function of the unconscious as well as the collective unconscious and both are not dissimilar to intuition. It is in intuition that we think; I AM; YOU ARE, GOD IS!

I have said that while the process of intuition is verifiably functional, the content is not necessarily factual or true. God does NOT exist because someone says he does, whereas intuition exists because everyone says it does. In chapter two I discuss epistemology, the science of knowing, and in that discussion I include Intuition as one way of knowing. The Principle of Uncertainty is inescapable in the study of knowing.

The principle of uncertainty is at the very heart of development of human thought and knowledge. We want to be sure, but slowly we see that is impossible. How and why religious creed has been able to sound so for sure, so unquestionably accurate and beyond debate, is per se, a bewildering subject. Some years ago, exact circumstances of which I have forgotten, I heard a vignette that illustrates the stubbornness of organized religion to be challenged. A young student seminarian in an R.C. institution confessed to one of his professors, who was a priest, that he had growing doubts about the validity of some of the creeds in his religion. With an attitude of authoritative finalism and lofty hubris, Let-me-straighten-you-out-once-and-for-all, the professor’s riposte was, Look young man, this is NOT your church; this is not even my church; it is God’s church, and what you’re questioning is of absolutely no consequence. What part of ‘God’s church and creed’ do you not understand?.

To be told that one is a thought rebel can be discomfiting. But even though It doesn’t feel good, to be thus branded can be empowering. Ask Yeshua of Nazareth, Martin Luther, Menno Simons, Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, Galileo, Newton, Emerson, Jack Spong, Tom Harpur, Marcus Borg, Dostoyevski, Hans Kung, and others who dared to think outside the box. In early 2012, I had another of those priceless epiphanies during which I once again groaned as I recognized the implications of my thoughts. Stated succinctly, I asked if my theology of so many years was rooted in events and sayings of Yeshua during his short life time of 33 years, or from the three days of his cruel death. I questioned whether I had a Life of Jesus theology or whether I was persisting with a Death of Jesus theology. Paul, who sacralized the person of Jesus and his death, never met Yeshua. Whatever he wrote about Yeshua was entirely hearsay. When I saw it and had sufficiently Aha-a-a-ed about it, I recalled many volumes of books I had read about this very comparison, but had not perceived what it all meant. I have changed. My theology now reflects Yeshua’s life, not his death. Thy kingdom be on Earth, is a workable agenda. The moniker, The son of man as well as the son of God, are both functional labels.

Paul’s theologizing of the passion week events (rooted in Babylonian, Zoroastrian, Greek and Roman mythology) were basic to substitutionary Atonement theology, otherwise also known as Sacrificial theology. First Saul of Tarsus, then Augustine, then a variety of patristic councils and then more fully, Anselm in the 11th century, systematized it all into a theology in which Jesus Christ, God’s messiah was slain vicariously for the sins of mankind. By believing that Jesus died and rose to make atonement for one’s sins determined whether one spent eternity in heaven or hell. How well I recall from Bible School days how passion week theology was so vigorously taught. I recall my chagrin when a Saskatchewan farmer’s son, a few bricks short of a load, was given an F on a lousy theology test. The lad failed, (do you get it?) He failed on a theology test in a Bible School where he had come to learn a bit more about God.

Life-style, deeds and words of Yeshua can be succinctly developed into a theology that is nonjudgmental, non-condemning, does away with ideas of being born in sin, is inclusive, pluralistic and emphasizes Love, Empathy, Caring and Giving during life here on Earth. Whether there is a heaven at the end of life is uncertain. That there is a hell for unbelievers is mischievously asinine; a belief entertained by lunatics.

It is passion week theology that Sigmund Freud called a delusion—toxic and damaging to human quality of life. It is because of the focus on passion week theology that makes atheist Hitchens brothers, and Richard Dawkins a threat to Christians. Paulinian passion week theology was the sole focus of Paul and the patrists who wrote the Apostolic Creed and the Nicene creed. It stuck like glue through the years of the Holy Roman Empire. Even the Reformation Protestant church never left Sacrificial Death theology. Nor did my Anabaptist forebears. For them passion week theology remained Die Glaube", and I am amazed at the fortitude and mettle of a writer like John Howard Yoder who wrote The Politics of Jesus.

There is, in my opinion, just a noticeable trace of temerity in Yoder’s book, but in retrospect, the book he wrote was one of the earliest expressions, in my generation, that drew attention to the theology that emerges from Yeshua’s life rather than his death.

Is this new? No it isn’t. One historic occasion for arguing this issue was the conference at Nicea in 325 C.E. The line of very serious debate was drawn between the thoughts of Arius and those of Athanasius. More complex than I wish to present here, the controversy centered on whether Yeshua was very God Himself in human flesh (basic to Atonment theology), or whether he was a human made in the likeness of God (essentially a Life Of Jesus theology). The former view, that of Athanaseus, was validated as official church doctrine and received the imprimatur of emperor Constantine. Arius was pronounced anathema (fit only to be killed) and given enough time to run for his life—up the Nile, heretic; Out Out!. What Arius taught came to be known as the heresy of Arius. The theology of Athanaseus became God’s Absolute Final Truth, enshrined in the Nicene Creed (325 CE)—the one I was brought up in.

Why question? Why bother discussing these issues? Who cares? Answers include that the Christian church of all brands makes money, has power, authority, political influence, and people, if converted, are assured of heaven beyond this life. In Paulinian Sacrificial theology, conditions on Earth, however rotten, are of no concern inasmuch as rewards in Heaven will redress all the pain and misery that occurs on Earth. Ask an Islam young chap who plans to blow himself up, why he is going to do so, and you will hear an insane answer that he will be given some 30 virgins for sexual consort in heaven. I gather that the virgins have no say in the matter. Incidentally, the Islam paradise is not essentially different from that of the Christian heaven.

There is no doubt in my mind that during the coming decades religions rooted in creeds, whether Islam, Christian or other, will be challenged by what is called spirituality. This is precisely what Bruxy Cavey delineates in his book, The End of Religion, An Introduction to the Subversive Spirituality of Jesus. The movement toward spirituality and universal ethical values will not again be stopped. My title for this tome, after somewhat painful assessment of alternatives is, Freeing God From Religion, and I write in a genre not dissimilar to Bruxey Cavey and to what I think Bonhoeffer might have written about the nonreligious Christology he talked about before the Nazis got him. So I add, be careful how you treat your rebels, lest they be your prophets.

Whether I am leaving a written legacy has yet to be evaluated. I doubt that I am; for anything I write has been written before. That I am deliberately irreverent is not true; neither am I plagiarising. I am excited by what I have discovered, but my caveat is that uncertainty remains. In science there is the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and I believe that essentially there is always a similar uncertainty in religious, social and philosophical thought.

In his book, The Evolution of God, Robert Wright also describes how, out of adversarial and conflicting interpretations of God and religion,(regardless of how many millions of people die during this adversarial period) there will emerge a truly Hegelian synthesis that is better than previous adversarial definitions. In my opinion such synthesis is the recognition that Spirituality heals while creeds kill. Christ is more than a person, s/he/it is The Healing Spiritual Energy everywhere at work. I see a very human rational for a theology that emerges from the records of what Jesus said and did while alive on Earth; and that’s what this book is all about. (June, 2012). Please read on!

#1

FREEING GOD FROM RELIGION

"If I am not for myself, who is? And if not now, when? (Hillel)

Either you repeat the conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true and it will sound like it’s from Neptune (Noam Chomsky)

I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should . . . . If you are true, but not in the same truth with me; cleave to your companions, I will seek my own (R.W. Emerson)

I needed to finish; I had never finished anything. To be exact, to condense myself to a pinpoint, impaling a fact, a certainty. (Margaret Atwood)

Dream freely. Envision excellence.

Cherish your creations. Exude enthusiasm.

Be inspired. Inspire others.

Take pride in you. Recognize inner beauty.

Draw on inner strength. Look inside your soul.

Create peace. Seek truth. Spread joy.

Embark on adventure. Launch new ideas.

Think big. Invoke possibilities. Live fully. Reach out.

Aim high. Find happiness. Expect the best.

Be the best. Believe in yourself.

-Jan Michelson:

* * *

The title reads, Freeing God From religion. The thought that God is fenced-in is obnoxiously opprobrious in the extreme. Imagine! God in a fence that has no gate. The creeds, or Articles of Faith found in hymn books, are precisely such fences. Even the Bible can be turned into a fence without gates. Yes, I know C.S. Lewis is heralded as one, who with agony and ecstasy tried to free God. His wardrobe had a door—a door way he never did go through.

God has never written any part of the Bible or any theology supposedly rising from it. But as of now God is all fenced up in the Bible, the Koran or some other so-called holy book, and above all, the creeds. Cliff, come to our liturgical church service. We recite the creeds. Silently I groan, My God!

As of now God is unable to escape what we say the Bible says about him. Now if God did not write holy words or a theology, then humans did. But after they did, they sat around and decided it would be in their best interests to say that God, in a mysterious way, dictated the theology to them in the first place. Those oral traditions gave rise to writings which were then turned into a theology from which the Bible came. The process reeked of cozenage and mischievous pretension. Let me be clear; theology was precedent to the Bible. Theology does not come from the Bible; it made the Bible.

Bright moonlight filled the cool November sky as Jeanette and I walked from the barn to our house on our farm near Abbotsford, British Columbia. In the south-west, just above the tall cedars next to the ravine, we saw an unusually bright, reddish glowing star, and as we gazed at it, Jeanette remarked, "Wow! Is that ever pretty! What planet is that?

It is probably the planet Mars. I hear that the orbit of Mars is very close to Earth right now. That’s why they call it the evening star.

Captured by the wonder of the moment, she continued, So tell me Cliff, what our life all about is anyway? Why are we even seeing this and asking questions about a star? Bothered by just such issues I responded with the question I still have trouble articulating, Yeah, Jeanette, and just what kind of God have we got hold of who would set up for humans on this itsy-bitsy, water-covered planet Earth, a complex morality plot, where to believe something supposedly results in good stuff and where to not believe carries outrageous penalties for inconsequential bits of human protoplasm who never even asked to be born? "We have fenced in God by our words about him. God has never told anyone anything about himself; it has always been humans (mostly men) who