Chapter Nine

   "WELCOME to the Principality of Beelzebul, the Lord of the Flies. As you travel through these invisible precincts sacred to demonry, we shall present for your edification such instruction as will heighten your appreciation of human culture and your understanding of the aspirations of all people. First, a word about demons. There is a good deal of misinformation in the common folklore with regard to demons. Many think of us as imps, or gnomes, or wicked little gremlins that hide in the woodwork or jump in and out of people. This is a travesty. The truth is that demons are nothing more than ideas. We are the impulses of reason and intelligence, dedicated to the building of a universe operated by man's scientific thought and rational control. We hope that during this time together you will get to like us.

   "One of the surest signs of the emancipation of man from the darkness of ignorance has been his willingness to examine the basis of his religious convictions. The learner will soon discover, if he is truly objective, that all such beliefs are based upon primitive superstitions. These superstitions, all of

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which are born out of fear and dread, can be found even today among tribespeople in the remote sectors of human habitation.

   "Primitive man, prehistoric man, as we know from archaeological evidence, instinctively attributed the events that surrounded his daily life to the intervention of supernatural powers. Thus every tree had its god; every stream had its spirit; every hilltop had its sacred ring where something or other was worshipped. With the coming of the age of science, of course, all such simple credulities have been dissolved. The light of knowledge has driven out the darkness of belief. It is no longer possible for modern man, educated in the heritage of human culture and trained in the physical and social sciences, to hold to the existence of the supernatural. We shall continue after a brief pause for station identification. You are listening to Radio WARP in Beelzebul. . . ."

You know I don't like to admit it but this man has got something How can I question science It's all right to believe in God but the fact is I've never seen him The preachers have never seen him The astronauts have never seen him And the fellow's right this spook business is for the birds When you look at the universe it's obvious that it operates along certain principles When you look at people they react according to pattern Like if I meet a customer who needs help and I make a good pitch I sell a computer It's just as simple as that Where does the religion come in Anyway here I am driving along this road and heading for a place called Life City that's supposed to be full of holy Joes To be honest

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I don't know that there is any such place I've gone and left a place I know for a place I don't know Why Who knows I suppose because of Ernie but who's Ernie Well he's somebody who says when I hear something on the radio I'm supposed to read a Bible verse OK Ernie here's your little Bible verse "Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature namely His eternal power and deity has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made So they are without excuse" Hey that sounds pretty good I'm going to run through it again Wait a minute What's happening to the radio There's a lot of interference coming from some place Must be the broken aerial Let's see if I can figure out what this verse means It says there's a God all right and only a fool could ignore the evidence that we see all around us Well I never did disbelieve really I just. . . .

   "Station WARP wishes to apologize for the transmission difficulty that momentarily interrupted our programme. Continuing our presentation of modern man and the demonic, we would like to draw your attention to the scientific progress being made in recent New Testament studies. For the past twenty years the key word has been 'demythologize'. Now, demythologizing the New Testament—or the Old, for that matter—means simply removing from it those portions (there are many of them, we regret to say) which are unacceptable to the modern human intelligence. You see, the trained intellect will want to examine such things as miracle stories from a different frame of reference than that

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of a medieval monk, let us say, or a woodcutter in the Black Forest.

   "Now, to eliminate miracles is not to weaken the New Testament or to render it historically less important. On the contrary, demythologizing greatly enhances the importance of the ancient documents. It renders them scientifically reliable—to a degree. For example, the four Gospels frequently refer to Jesus as the 'Son of God'. John, the so-called author of the Fourth Gospel, is the worst offender in this respect. But 'Son of God' is a purely mythological term. We find it in the myth heritage of Egypt, of Babylon, of Assyria, of Greece, of Rome, of all the ancient cultures. To modern man it is an expression that means nothing.

   "When we strip Jesus of this title we see him immediately as he really was, a provincial Jewish religious leader who borrowed most of his ideas from earlier rabbis. We discover that it was his followers who built him up into a supernatural figure after his death. These followers invented the term, 'Son of God' in order to exaggerate their own importance. They also introduced the stories of his virgin birth and his rising from the dead in order to create a basis for the new religious establishment they hoped to erect. . . ."

Isn't  that something I always suspected these things but I could never put them into words Now if I could see a miracle happening right before my eyes I might be impressed Like if this Mustang were to turn into a Cadillac I'd say that

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would be a miracle But I don't know about a woman having a baby without a man around And there was always something that bothered me too about what happened to the body of Jesus I never mentioned it but I wish somebody would explain it to me about the cells decomposing and recomposing and all that business Maybe this guy is right we just have to demythol—whatever it is get Jesus down where we are so we can understand him I don't see why the New Testament shouldn't be studied scientifically like anything else except old Ernie of course He won't like that He just thinks take another Bible verse and that will settle everything Well what is the next Bible verse Ernie "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved" Now that doesn't say anything about myths or science I'm just going to take another look at it "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved" Hello the radio's acting up again The battery cables must be loose I don't see any high tension wires around I like that though It says it so clear that the reason we believe is not that we want to get into a religious or scientific argument but that we want to be saved Now I was saved back there on that hill I know that for a fact I lost the burden that was killing my back and God turned me into something new, and now I'm on my way to Life City The reason I know this. . . .

   "Ladies and gentlemen, please excuse us once again for the unfavourable conditions in the atmosphere that are rendering our electronic presentation of this lecture difficult. We are making an all-out

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effort to correct the situation. We were about to say that scientific progress in New Testament studies has now moved into the field of linguistics. Some of the ablest scholars of today are now pointing out that such words as 'God', 'Heaven' and 'salvation' no longer connote any meaning for humanity.

   "This is not because of a change in the nature of the universe; indeed, we demons would have to insist that nothing in the universe has changed significantly since the disaster of nearly two thousand years ago. What has changed is modern man's focus of interest. He no longer troubles himself with speculation about religious matters. The very word 'spiritual' is dropping out of his vocabulary. Man has quite properly made himself and his environment the primary field of his study. To illustrate: in his psychosocial approach to behaviour man has discovered that the primitive taboos on certain foods and the archaic Mosaic and Pauline injunctions on relations between the sexes are no longer needed. Possibly these structures may have served some useful purpose in the childhood of the race (although that point is debatable), but today man has come of age and is no longer required to observe them.

   "In fact, man's whole sense of values is undergoing a transformation, so that what he used to call bad he now calls good. He accepts what he finds in the world as 'given', and looks upon 'sin' as an outdated concept that is no longer significant. He is determined to make the most of every moment, to

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realize his full humanity, to exercise his potentialities to the utmost. He believes that when he dies, he dies; that is all. Modern man looks with pity on those shrivelled souls who, under the impulse of some religious illusion, continue to deny themselves the very things man was put on earth to enjoy. In fact, he is inclined to look upon the whole religious superstructure as a device to suppress man's free instincts and to oppress his living conditions.

   ''Why shouldn't a man take what is offered to him? Why shouldn't he enjoy the world? Why shouldn't he fill his life with excitement and pleasure? Try to think of one good reason. There is no reason. There is only the bogey-man, the 'social code', or as Dr. Freud liked to call it, the 'superego', to which thinking men and women no longer pay the least attention. Progress has been extremely rapid in this area in recent years and we look for greater things to come. . . ."

Well that's the way I used to think back in Doomsdale and it still makes some sense I mean you're a long time dead like he says When I was on the road I know I couldn't see why I should stay all night in a motel room when I could go out and live it up You can't get away from the fact that God wouldn't have made things pleasant if he hadn't expected us to enjoy them and I must admit I'm confused I wish he'd shut up so I could have some time to think Ernie old boy what do I do now Oh sure the next verse What else OK "If any one is in Christ he is a new creation the old has passed away behold the new has come" What Nothing about

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fleeing fornication Ernie you're slipping This doesn't really seem to apply the way I'm feeling right now Let's see "If any one is in Christ he is a new creation the old has passed away behold the new has come" Good night will you look at the sparks coming out of that radio If it's not the aerial there must be a short in the ignition somewhere You don't suppose these little verses are having any effect on the station programme Why how could they It doesn't make sense but let's face it nothing else on this strip makes sense Let's try another and see "You who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh God made alive together with him having forgiven us all our trespasses having cancelled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands this he set aside nailing it to the cross He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them triumphing over them in him" Hey there's a fire in the radio Now what do I do I don't dare stop here Maybe I can pour some of this lemonade over it Wow that worked fast Well I sure got his number I don't think he'll give me much trouble from now on Ernie old boy you did it again. . . .

   "Ladies and gentlemen, we are very sorry indeed to report that some thoughtless transient driving through our territory has been firing unidentified flying objects into the atmosphere with such damaging regularity that we are unable to continue with this aaawwwwwkkk! rrrrrrrrrrrrrppppp! We had intended to continue the discussion by taking up the question of the end of theism, the sociological basis of the new morality, and the yyyyooooowwwwwkkkk! and political future of

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the modern church in a secular society. Instead we will be back tomorrow when we trust our magnetic field will be cleared and conditions will become more stabilized. This is station WARP signing off and saying pppeeeeeeyyyyoooppp. . . ."

   So at last that man has decided to shut up What a relief He was a real snake in the grass Had me swallowing everything I sure wouldn't stand up under a Communist brainwashing Don't have the judgment or the stamina They''d have me bleating Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh after about twelve seconds of staring at the wall YESSIR I Betrayed the People's Republic I dropped Germs in Your Water Supply All right quit calling yourself names you can do better than that Seems like I ought to be getting near the end of this miserable stretch What did he call it Principality of Beelzebul Been climbing steadily for half an hour now I can't make out if those are mountains ahead Boy there must have been something loaded in those Bible verses Can't figure it out Must have been God working yet how could it through the car radio Oh well it's not my war All this invisible business gives me the creeps anyway I'm sure not worth it In fact the more I think about it I wonder what it has to do with me and what I'm doing here Let's just think again about that hill behind the transmitter Was I saved there How do I know I was saved Could be I was just talked into it I'm not denying anything just raising questions When you look at my background all that might be as phoney as a three dollar bill I haven't had any religious connections Never went to church after tenth grade I'm proud I'm dishonest I lust after the flesh I have a colourful vocabulary that is the admiration of all my

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friends I'm a spiritual deadhead and a moral failure and to pretend anything else is to turn me into a hypocrite which is worse yet I have no business palming myself off as a good man I'm a blot on the face of humanity and ought to be flushed down the nearest drain You open up my record all of it and there's not a church council in the country that would vote me into membership Godly matters are simply out of my reach I'm untrained and ill-at-ease among people connected with religion Keeping up a facade is hopeless I'm not adequate to the effort of faith simple reason is I'll never be any different from the person I know I am Even the thought of God these last few seconds fills me with loathing I'm a spiritual pervert incapable of holding a decent thought Those things I listened to on the radio were absolutely right There Is No God There Is No Son of God The Bible is as full of holes as Swiss cheese I'm going to live it up I'm going to shout curses until this Principality is bleary with profanity and obscenity and holy smoke the car's heating up I'm losing power How can I get that radiator to cool down I don't dare stop in this hellhole There's something under my heel No wonder I can't work the throttle right That packet of verses It must have fallen off the dashboard Now they're spilled all over What's this one "Valley of the" something Nope I still can't get any power Oh man we're stopping right on the level only a few more yards and we could be going downhill Don't stall Don't stall Where's that gadget "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me" Shucks that's where you are now This is the Valley of the Shadow of Death It was painted on the rock back there Once more "Though I walk through the valley of the

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shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me" Huh I believe we're going to make it Just a bit more A bit more We're coasting I believe we're I believe we're we're we're Hallelujah we made it Ernie we made it God God God God I'm delivered The fear is gone That accuser is gone Those weren't my thoughts at all they were his After I jammed his radio programme he started right on my mind Well he can have those ideas straight back and may the good Lord rebuke him I'm over the invisible line Hallelujah. . . .

Chapter Ten  ||  Table of Contents