“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” – Vincent van Gogh

Picking your nose in public is certainly not a nice thing to do. Picking your nose in private is probably okay… unless it’s Saturday and you’re one of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s followers. The interesting verdict was widely published in 1998 by the spiritual leader of the Orthodox Jewish Shas political party in Israel, which represents about 10% of the Israeli population.

In spite of what you may think about this ridiculous forbiddance, it makes perfect sense, given certain axioms. Assuming there is a god who is watching everything we do, and assuming he handed his instructions to the Jewish people through the Bible and the Talmud, then one should not perform any kind of work in the holy day of Saturday. The definition of work by this same codex of rules is very detailed, and includes for example things like cutting your hair. When you pick your nose, there is an obvious danger you’ll tear out some hair, therefore the act is strictly forbidden on Saturdays.

In a totally different place and environment, but approximately at the same time, Bishop Tikhon Fitzgerald and The Orthodox Church in America published a series of instructions for priests. The Orthodox Christian God, so it appears, seems to require the priest who is hearing the confession of another priest, not to bless the head of the priest who is confessing with his hand only. Instead he must hold a cross on the head and bless with it. Further instructions describe the exact direction that priests should face during various ceremonies, and many other exhausting details.

It is arguable that forcing one day of rest per week, or assisting people in distress by confession, are of some value. In fact, it is relatively safe to say that most religious laws and rituals can be associated with one noble cause or another, especially if you ask a talented preacher. Yet, religion – like any other authority – must translate its values into day-to-day details. The point is that in this case, it’s God’s will that allegedly propagates through all the fine details. As if His Holiness actually keeps an eye on our nasal hair on Saturdays.

It’s very likely that Judaism is the champion of small details. Many instructions were generated at different times due to the notion of fences, which are like safety zones around various things considered to be God’s will.

Thus, you are not allowed to tear toilet paper on Saturdays. You have to wait a minimum of six complete hours between eating something with meat and eating something else that contains milk (see also the chapter ‘From Now to Eternity’ above). However, you only have to wash your mouth after eating something with milk components, before enjoying a good hamburger. Also, you generally need to immerse your kitchen pots and pans in boiling water to prepare them before Passover, if they have previously been used to cook things above 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).

While a wife is having her monthly period, the married couple is not supposed to have sex. What are the exact instructions for “family purity”? Just a few of the many fine details: The couple is not allowed to sit together on the same sofa if its structure transfers one’s movements to the other. They are not allowed to eat from the same plate. The termination of this period must be checked well by the wife, with a white piece of cloth, in a rotational movement, and she must wait for the sunset after being considered clean to attend the mikve (a mikve is a ritual immersion bath that restores purity). Not to mention the exact set of rules for going to the mikve afterwards to be so-called purified.

Calculating the exact minute when Saturday begins or ends has become an art by itself. In fact there are now special software programs available to assist in this complex task. Similarly, calculating the exact day when a month starts (according to the Jewish calendar) also requires great skill and vast knowledge. Nevertheless, Jewish holidays and fasts are based unerringly on this difficult calculation.

This trend (of not leaving anything for self interpretation) raises a whole new set of questions. Nowadays it’s a real challenge dealing with new knowledge and technologies, which were unknown to the ancient legislators. The results may be extremely funny sometimes: How do you avoid breaking the Sabbath when you’re orbiting Earth in a space shuttle? How do you bless the New Moon while you’re on it? Is it okay to speak near a recording device on Saturday, knowing that by speaking you are generating small electrical currents?

And indeed the modern rabbis, bishops and sheikhs leave very little for further inspection. Everything is dealt with. God seems to have an opinion on every little aspect of our modern lives as well. Want some real life examples? Have patience – here they come!

During the first Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm), Iraqi Scud missiles fell on populated areas in Israel. People got advanced warnings and directions through television and radio. But how do you get good advice from the media on the Sabbath without turning something on? So the chief rabbis found a creative solution: They issued a ruling that Orthodox Jews should leave a radio turned on over the Sabbath, tuned to the silent channel that the government had set aside to broadcast announcements in an emergency. Furthermore, Saturday radio operators were instructed to push the appropriate button not directly, but by using a small stick.

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“A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.” – Groucho Marx

This is chapter thirteen of this book! Therefore, in order for it to be a big success, quickly go to the next chapter. Do not collect $200.

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The following is a suggested video clip ad for The Truth Is Wrong. If you happen to create it, let me know - I’ll be delighted.

[Black picture]

[Traditional church music increases]

[The traditional figure of Jesus (with the halo around the head) gradually appears]

[Music gradually changes to traditional Jewish music]

[The traditional figure of Moses appears near Jesus]

[Music gets a somewhat Arabic flavor]

[An abstract oval shape with abstract legs appears near the two. Small text on it says “dangerous when in cartoons”]

[Music gradually dies. The three figures become smaller. An image of a beautiful woman, provocatively dressed and eating a meal appears]

[The three figures penetrate her head and disappear inside. Woman blinks]

[Authoritative narrator:] They go here

[The three figures exit the head from another location, and climb down the woman under her skirt. Woman sexually moans]

[Authoritative narrator:] They also go here

[The three figures exit the skirt and climb up the table into the food plate]

[Authoritative narrator:] They certainly go here

[The three figures jump to the floor and gradually step outside the picture. A huge line of smaller men forms, stepping after them, some carrying cross / magen-david / crescent]

[Authoritative narrator:] And wherever they went, many others have gone

[The three figures reenter the picture from the opposite side, holding together a small book]

[Authoritative narrator:] They think they know the truth…

[Book pops out of their hands, and gradually becomes a large “The Truth Is Wrong” book]

[Authoritative narrator with emphasis:] But the truth is wrong!

[The oval figure peeps from behind the large book, with “anger drops” around its top]

[Narrator coughing and hesitating:] … Ummm … most of the time, that is.

[Big explosion]

[End]

For all that, in the Bible itself, sex is quite commonly used. Many times to simply describe sexual events, in other places – as an allegory. The author of chapter 16 in Ezekiel, wrote about Jerusalem and the people of Judea, but undoubtedly had some specific pictures in his mind. We’ll perform a nasty exercise here, and abuse the original text by stripping it of all non-sexual stuff. Here is what we’re left with (feel free to skip to the end of this short masterpiece, whenever you think you have had enough):

“… And thou didst increase and grow up, and thou camest to excellent beauty: thy breasts were fashioned, and thy hair was grown; yet thou wast naked and bare. Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, and, behold, thy time was the time of love, I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness … and I anointed thee with oil … But thou didst trust in thy beauty and play the harlot because of thy renown, and didst pour out thy harlotries on every one that passed by; his it was. And thou didst take of thy garments, and didst make for thee high places decked with divers colors, and didst play the harlot upon them … and didst play the harlot with them … And in all thine abominations and thy harlotries thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare … Thou hast built thy lofty place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty an abomination, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy harlotries … thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet thou wast not satisfied … and yet thou didst not have enough herewith … the work of a wanton harlot … but thou hast given thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hast bribed them to come unto thee from every side in thy harlotries … thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness uncovered through thy harlotries with thy lovers … I will gather all thy lovers … and will uncover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness … I will also give thee into their hand … and they shall strip thee of thy clothes … and they shall leave thee naked and bare … and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women … Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters …“

Fortunately, there is little chance for an original Biblical text to be censored, or else this book would probably be one page shorter. The original text in Hebrew, by the way, sounds less mild than the English translation used above. ‘Opened thy feet’, for example, is written as ‘spread your legs’ and ‘uncover thy nakedness’ sounds more like ‘reveal your genitals’.

At this point, you probably say “enough obscenity!” and the good news is that there’s also some pretty nice erotic poetry in the Bible, most notably the Song of Songs (go ahead and have a look). Alas, many Orthodox Jews learn in school that the text in this case is merely a metaphor for the love between God and Israel.

Religion and sex form a strange couple. Sometimes they live happily together. Most of the time they need a marriage counselor.

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“Why sex is better than gods? It’s ok to yell ‘Oh God’ during sex, but it’s not ok to yell ‘Oh Fuck’ in church.” – Unknown

In order for this book to sell properly, it must of-course contain some text about sex, and words such as intercourse and orgasm should be mentioned. A quick search of the Internet shows that other creative titles (e.g., ‘Sex and the Pity’ or ‘Sex and the Nitty’) are already taken, hence ‘Sex and the ET’ – after all ET is not that far from our main topic. ET as in extraterrestrial. ET phone home.

With various religious beliefs, sex is often associated with something dirty and many times with guilt, as if you’re doing something wrong. We don’t have to search hard for examples – many traces are easily found in the Bible itself. Here is just one of them:

“And Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their garments. And he said unto the people: Be ready against the third day; come not near a woman.” (Exodus, chapter 19, verses 14-15)

It seems as if sex, or even the presence of a female, constitutes some sort of competition for the true belief of the male (of-course), and for his so-called purity in the eyes of God – who is (not very surprisingly) presented as a male figure himself. Putting it differently: Women occupy the male’s mind with other unsuitable thoughts.

Thus, certain Christian officials are not supposed to have sex at all. Islamic women should cover their entire body, including their faces, while in public. In a Jewish synagogue the women are put in a closed remote section. Not to mention numerous taboos and rituals associated with menstruation.

Probably this all takes place because religious sex rules have often nothing to do with moral. At least not with human moral as we know it. Instead they are supposed to represent a godly moral, and for him it’s quite desirable to cut off some foreskin or clitoris here and there, and is not that bad to have sex with little girls under 3 years of age (I’m not going to tell you where this one comes from, but trust me on this).

Sometimes it even seems as if our sages used sex-related religious discussions as a moderate replacement for modern porn. For example, sexual contents are easy to find in the Jewish sources. In them one can read why a widow is not allowed to raise dogs due to a potential bestiality risk, what makes girls’ breasts grow faster than their pubic hair, how dreams about having sex with a female goose are used to predict the future, and how sex with an uncircumcised male is more pleasant for a female.

Still, some global conspiracy about things associated with sex exists among most major religions. Most of the time you can guess what a very religious person would say about short skirts, no matter what prophets he or she worships. You can almost predict what answer you’ll get about abortion, and usually tell in advance that person’s opinion about birth control. Masturbation is a no-no, and there will be of-course appropriate punishments for unauthorized sex of any kind, especially if you’re unfortunate enough to be a woman. In certain religious contexts or environments, a woman is officially not supposed to enjoy the act.

Are the religious authorities so pure?

“…It makes it all so ordinary just like you and me, to know the greatest heroes they had to shit and pee!” (From the ‘The Intergalactic Laxative’ by Donovan Leitch, 1973).

Surprisingly as it might sound, the greatest heroes also had sex on their minds. Saint Patrick dreamed about naked women, the Rambam had erections in the morning, and Abu Bakr, the first of the Muslim caliphs… (Text here censored due to the desire of the author to stay alive). In short – they were normal human beings. Just like you and me.

Perhaps as part of being “just like others”, you can also find sex crimes and perversions in religious contexts. The abuse of young kids by priests in America and Europe is not hot news anymore, following several famous cases that received publicity in the years 2000 through 2003. Rabbis who “helped” women by using some creative techniques also made the news several times in Israel. Forbidden fruit, you know, tastes better. Please note: This is not to say that religious people – whether leaders or not – are worse in this respect than others. It’s just to emphasize the simple truth that they are… people.

The somewhat suspicious attitude towards sex seems to go both ways, as far as religious belief and tradition is concerned. The Kama Sutra (the ancient Hindu love guide) plays a major role in eastern culture. In fact, the Hindu tradition contains a special god of love – the god Kama. Greek mythology is also full of sex stories about the various gods and goddesses. Many ancient religions and folklores were actually based on the feminine figure.

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There are already several users registered to this blog.

In case you missed: Registering enables you to post your own stories and articles. At least this is the way I’ve set the damn thing for now

So please use the “Site Admin” link above and post something suitable of your own. It’s fun. I may even comment…

– Bud

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon did not escape the ancient deadly curse. Before implementing the Gaza Disengagement Plan in 2005, a group of religious activists were shown on Israeli TV, cursing him in what seemed to be a scene taken from ‘Charmed’ (you know, these three sister witches that practice magic and powerful spells while your kids are having lunch). Certain Kabbalah experts explained that either Mr. Sharon or the people involved in the act should have died within a month. In practice, the only thing that died within a month was the media’s treatment of this story. Major General Amir Drori, former head of the Israel Antiquities Authority, also enjoyed similar curses in his past. Certain Orthodox religious Jews hate archaeology, so it seems. Major General Drori died many years later (in the beginning of 2005) of old age. With or without ancient curses, we all die eventually!

And now for something completely different…

One of Monty Python’s most amusing scenes ever is the stoning scene from ‘Life of Brian’, where the old man is jumping up and down, waiting to be stoned, shouting “Jehova Jehova Jehova!” and then one of the stoners says “He said it again! He said Jehova!” and gets stoned himself.

And it’s all based on the traditional text of the third commandment (many consider it as the second commandment): “Thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy God in vain” (Exodus, chapter 20, verse 7). Modern study of the Bible talks about several different origins of its ancient text. Two of them are given the names ‘J’ and ‘E’ by the researchers, for using the names ‘Jehova’ and ‘Elohim’ appropriately as the name of ‘God’.

Historically, the old names are derived from even older names. ‘El’ used to be the chief god of the ancient Canaanite pantheon. The archaeological findings of Ugarit from around the 13th century BC contain lots of interesting data about El and his sons. Interestingly enough, some of these texts somehow found their way later into the book of Psalms. Elohim and Allah are considered to evolve from El. The name of the local god, Yahweh, has been archaeologically revealed in conjunction with the goddess Asherah, and the ancient Hebrews also adopted his name. It appears in the Bible, courtesy of the old ‘J’ source, spelled as Yehova.

Reading the last three paragraphs out loud would typically send an Orthodox religious Jew on a collision course with his or her friends and neighbors. We’re not talking about the era covered by ‘Life of Brian’. We’re talking about today, you know – flying rockets to the Moon and all that.

The various names of God are not only problematic to speak and write, but also to erase. In case you missed, there was a recent debate about the usage of God’s names in electronic documents. Rest assured, they’re okay to erase because the electronic text is made of pixels. Things that make you go hmmm.

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“All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

People who travel the old Jewish quarter of Prague (the capital of the Czech Republic) may be surprised to see shops with many little souvenirs in the shape of a strange and chubby human-like creature. The creature’s name is The Golem.

A well-known Jewish legend talks about Rabbi Yehuda Loew (also known as The Maharal), who lived in Prague in the 16th century. According to the legend, Rabbi Loew created the Golem from clay. Then he used some secret spells to put life into the body of the creature that became a servant of the community. Some versions of the legend talk about how the Golem later became a frightening figure for the people of Prague, and had to be shut down by its creator.

As for the spells used to convert our Golem into the world of the living, there are also several versions of the story. Some of them talk about quoting phrases or words from Jewish mythology, while others mention using the explicit name of God, whatever that may be. We’ll come back to this amazing issue soon.

The alleged power of the spoken or written word is probably as old as language itself. Mysterious texts designed to help or hurt may be found all over: In witchcraft stories, in Christian exorcism tradition and in Jewish Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), in Voodoo spells and in ancient Egyptian curses and blessings on the Pharaohs’ tombs.

Traces of this ancient perception are found aplenty within old scripts, such as the Bible itself. Jacob fights his brother, Esau, for getting the blessing of Isaac. God changes Balaam’s intention of cursing the people of Israel, into blessing them. Job’s wife advises him to curse God and die (blaspheme!).

If someone asked you to murmur certain unclear words and phrases in public, you would probably make sure to let that individual know what you think about his or her request. Yet, millions of people do exactly this on a daily basis, which seems perfectly okay as long as it carries the title “Prayer”. Praying – especially the parts that we understand – serves more than one purpose: While in trouble, we often express our deep desire for help, whether silently in our heart, or by actually speaking it. There’s nothing wrong with that. This is how we’re naturally programmed to behave in extreme situations (good ones as well). Ritual praying is also often used to help convincing ourselves of things that cannot be proven otherwise.

However, a great deal of praying – in all major religions – is done without the person engaged in the act really understanding what the hell is being spoken. The majority of Jews don’t know old Aramaic and the majority of Catholics and Eastern Orthodox haven’t got a clue about ancient Latin. Does it bother them to practice praying in these strange antiquated dialects? In a bizarre way, it may even contribute to the feeling of sacredness, the respect of the unknown. In many cases one should wonder if this respect would stay the same, given a better knowledge of the semantics and the history behind the text.

Does God really expect our praise three times a day or is once a week, enough? Does he prefer classical Arabic or ancient Hebrew? If it really doesn’t matter, then why stick precisely to the same old phrases? Is it important to quote the text exactly, or is the meaning of the text more important? According to the Jewish religion, a change of a single letter disqualifies a copy of the Bible from being sacred (though some researches show that much bigger modifications took place over the years).

Some variations of old religious texts followed intriguing paths into today’s known customs. Crying ‘Allahu Akbar’ (Arabic for “Allah is great”) almost became the identifying mark of a suicide bomber. Confused babies all over the world when being baptized hear traditional Christian phrases, and other well-known traditional Jewish phrases accompany the ceremony of painful religious circumcision.

The emotional text of ‘Shma Israel’ (Hebrew for “Listen, Israel”) has followed many Jews to their death, as the very last words spoken. It is also written on millions of Jewish doorposts all over the world. Many Jewish people physically touch it while entering the house, and afterwards kiss their fingers, as if the sacred words guard them. This is in spite of the fact that many of them – especially nowadays – don’t really know what’s written there. It’s even a tradition to replace the mezuzah (the small case containing the sacred words, together with its content), or check the letters for errors, if something goes wrong in the house – some sudden death, for example.

More than twenty people died, most of whom were children, in the Habonim disaster in Israel in 1985, when a train hit a school bus. Religious thinking dictates the necessity of a reason for such a terrible incident. It was Rabbi Itzhak Peretz, later the Israeli Minister of Interior, who infuriated the mourning country by suggesting that the tragedy was the result of certain improper mezuzoth (plural for mezuzah), and thus could have been prevented.

In practice, it appears that the Jewish nation that has kept this mezuzah tradition over the years is the one nation that has suffered the most, even when no letter was changed or missing in the protecting text.

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The Orthodox Jews have a name for this: Emunas Chachomim – faith in the wise ones, the sages. Whatever my rabbi says is sacred. There is no doubt he is right. If something later appears to be wrong, look for the reasons elsewhere, not in the words themselves. It’s important to emphasize again that this is how they feel. And this is based on Biblical text itself: “…and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they shall teach thee.” (Deuteronomy, chapter 17, verse 10). This is indeed a closed loop: God says I should listen to my rabbi, which in turn teaches me that everything God says is right!

There are a couple of other issues, worth mentioning on this complex road of forming one’s way of life.

Yehoshua Bar-Yosef wrote the book ‘A Heretic Despite Himself’, which tells a long and colorful story of the road from Orthodox Judaism to the secular world. In the beginning of the story, our hero keeps participating in monthly gatherings with his male friends, away from their wives (for a good religious reason, you know). Their dancing ritual together – producing that high feeling – is described as far better than having sex.

People searching for their “identity” also seek a group of which to be part. We usually enjoy Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ when we’re too young to fully understand what’s going on (The king is naked! The king is naked!). Yet the message is clear and true: The power of the crowd is real. It both pressures and strengthens. The pressure is in the sense that we hate to appear different than the others. As for strengthening – have you ever participated in an event, where a large group of people with a similar ideology were performing some ritual together? Whether in political or religious context, one gets rather emotional in this “I encourage you and you encourage me” situation, and things seem as if they must be truer than ever.

Having a clear and well-defined goal fits well in this picture – just ask any successful high-tech startup manager. If you know exactly what you want to achieve and how you’re going to be rewarded at the end, you are also liable to share that feeling of “I am right”.

Another issue has to do with Newton’s first law of inertia. In addition to our being programmed to follow what we absorb as kids, we start implementing another program in our brain when we grow up – the program that makes it difficult for us to change things. Again, we are programmed to preserve our perception of the world, as we grow older. And yet again, another characteristic of ours is that we think we do a good job in examining the alternatives and choosing constantly.

This is somewhat correlated with what’s known as the Touchy-Feely Syndrome – the tendency for people to overvalue things they have touched or selected personally. This characteristic of ours is often a good reason for why investors stay with an investment for too long.

By the time many people dare to really think about altering their way of life, they have already established their position in the society around them. By then it might be very difficult to change the day-to-day behavior – What you wear, how you speak and where you live – even if perhaps you now secretly believe in completely different things.

Sometimes you unknowingly lie to yourself, only in order not to change things. You may even invent some intellectual excuses to explain why you’re right (“Doctors don’t know anything”, “Praying is proven to physiologically help”, “The king is not actually naked”). You must prove to yourself you haven’t been wasted all these years in vain. Other times you don’t bother lying to yourself any more, and knowingly decide not to change things. It’s a fact that there are people raised in a religious atmosphere since childhood, who are not religious anymore by any definition you may think of, except for their external appearance and surroundings.

George Orwell wrote ‘Shooting an Elephant’ in 1950. This story about life in Burma became quite famous. So did Orwell’s description of the man who grew to do what he was expected to do: “He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.”

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“It ain’t what a man don’t know that makes him a fool, but what he does know that ain’t so.” – Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)

The workers of San Diego’s Wild Animal Park were facing a strange kind of problem. While promoting the California condor breeding program, they reached a point in time when they were about to see some newly hatched chicks. However, they had to take precautions so that the chicks would not see them. They actually used some puppets to hide their hands, in order to fool the chicks.

Raising animals in captivity introduces a whole new set of problems, some of which are surprising. It appears that many kinds of chicks and cubs tend to imprint whatever they see after they are born and follow it around from then on. They interpret it as their mother, and interestingly, evolution has programmed them to follow their mother and mimic lots of her behaviors.

Humans – so it seems – are also extremely open to imprint things they see around them when they’re young. Families who have migrated from one country to another have often encountered another related syndrome: It appears that their small children have picked up the new language miraculously, to such an extent that they switch spontaneously to speaking it. They sometimes even do it in the presence of their parents, who barely understand the new sounds. They seem to do it especially when they’re excited or upset.

We largely absorb our understanding of the world around us from the way we are brought up. We are built to do so. In spite of what we may think, we have little control over this process. Have you noticed how in an Islamic environment, most people grow to be Muslims, while in a Christian environment, people somehow grow to worship the Trinity? The very same person would argue passionately about totally different things, if they had spent their childhood among others.

From the moment we are formed until we are full grown, our perception of this world changes from almost zero to everything we know, or think we know. Generally speaking, this dramatic change may be contributed to two sources only. One of them is found in our genes and the way we have evolved – for example: No one taught us how to suck milk as infants, or how to hold objects tightly with our little baby hands. The other source of our knowledge is in everything we see, hear, smell, feel and taste – whether this data comes from still objects, plants, animals or other people around us. This is what we grow up with, and is eventually the major source of information for us that turns into the abstract contents of these little boxes in the top of our heads.

And what do we see, hear, smell, feel and taste in this modern world of the 21st century? From the moment we start hearing stories, we learn about God, the Bible, miracles and saviors, monsters and witches, vampires and aliens. From the time we start seeing pictures and signs, we see the artistic comforting face of Jesus Christ, the glaring eyes of the Ayatollah Khomeini, and/or copies of the New Testament in every Western hotel room. It would take a really strong personality to put some solid sense into this stream of confusing emotional input.

The following famous joke illustrates the spirit of things:

A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.

“Whales can’t swallow people,” the teacher said. “Even though they are large mammals, their throats are very small.”

“But Jonah was swallowed by a whale,” the little girl replied.

“That just can’t be,” the teacher said. “It’s physically impossible.”

“When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah,” said the little girl.

The teacher looked down at her, smiled and asked, “What if Jonah went to hell?”

The little girl replied, “Then you ask him.”

You see, the little girl in the joke is merely you and I. We are programmed to act in certain ways and follow what we are repeatedly told. It is a human characteristic to consider things shown to us when we are young as true. It is another human characteristic to think we control this process and choose our truths. In fact we largely don’t.

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