That sudden moment of understanding. How precious it is. We describe it in various ways. ‘I suddenly understood.” “He had an epiphany.” “It was a revelation to me.” “The elevator finally went to the top.” “The light dawned.” “Finally all the pieces fit together.” “I never realized that until now.” “You mean to tell me this is the way it works?” “I suddenly saw what I had never seen before.” “It was as if my ears were finally open.” “Oh, my God; now I know.” These little pieces of ideas, sensations, sounds, concepts, facts, sensory data have been laying around in various protein complexes and charged fields, tacked into corners of myriads of neurons, all connected to myriads of other neurons in our super computer brains, but they don’t relate. Then one more idea is ingested, one more protein complex changes its electrical memory charge, and it fills a gap. There is a sudden flash of connections that were not available before, and a picture brightly burns that was until then in the dark. We are startled at the suddenness of understanding. We are not only startled at the suddenness with which it hits us, but also startled at how apparent it was all along. We just didn’t see it until now. Epiphany. Revelation.
Those who are personal god believers will say that this is the way their god works in their lives. It’s sort of like God is sitting at the keyboard of their super computer brains and decides to hit the hard drive clean up button. Then their computer brains do what god is telling them to do. They take all those little pieces of data scattered in multiple files and pull them all together into one file, so they can see it in one piece. Then their personal god that intervenes into human affairs tells them that they should pay attention to this newly formed file and use it in some useful way. God is always doing that, they say. He has some plan for us and knows when to reveal parts of that plan to us. He knows when to show us things that can help him move forward with his plan. Thousands of priests, rabbis and ministers are preaching this message every Sunday. They preach to millions of people every Sunday who believe that message. That’s really cool. Fantastically cool, as a matter of fact. Unfortunately for those who believe this message, it is absurd. Fantastically absurd, as a matter of fact.
Of course, that is nothing new. Revelations have been misunderstood since the beginning of human thought. We suddenly get a bright idea that there is a new way of doing something and are so proud of ourselves because this wonderful idea came to us. The only problem is when we try out our wonderful new idea, we find it fails miserably. Our revelation then assumes a new name: a mistake. We all carry fears with us to our beds. We have agitated sleep and wild dreams when we are afraid and emotionally disturbed. Our REM moments are filled with fierce creatures and fantastic colorful visions. We see angels, chariots, pillars and mansions of gold, flaming swords, marvelous horses, trinities, figures of splendor, vials of wrath, marks of the beast, unclean spirits, seven plagues, fire and brimstone. Our imaginations know no bounds when we are excited and when we are afraid. The last book of the Bible is full of this fantasy material. They call it the Revelation of St. John the Divine. We suspect a better name for the book of Revelations might be The Wild Ride of St. John the Schizophrenic. The really sad part of it is that there are many who believe these wild flights of imagination in the book of Revelations have some meaning for our lives. They don’t.
We pose that revelations do not occur at the hand of a personal god. We pose that there is no Supreme being who is telling us what to do and giving us a jolt every now and then to prod us forward in his, her, or its plan for the future. We pose that we are complex organisms with super computer brains that are constantly accepting a stream of data from multiple sensory sources, tabulating that data, storing it in various bins, finding it hard to find if that data is not used frequently, and always trying to make connections with disparate pieces of data. Sometimes only a few things come together at one time. At other times a lot of it comes together at one time. Those times we call revelations. It only makes sense. If our remarkable brains were not always trying to make various pieces of information fit together, they would not be doing their jobs. This is the way our brains work. They are supposed to make revelations. A personal god has nothing to do with it.
There is a God, however. This is a very real and omnipresent God who is into everything, a part of everything, was here at the beginning of our universe and will be here as long as our universe continues its existence. This God is a part of every minute subatomic particle reaction in the universe and the constant participant in every action. This God is here when galaxies collide. This God is here when the sparrow dies. This God is a part of every life and every death. This God holds power over all things and all life everywhere. We owe our deepest reverence to this all-powerful God from the depths of our souls. If we do not show this God our most profound respect, this God will wipe us out in a flash. This God is called the Laws of Chance. Take heed, ye sinners, who put the mythical needs of your mythical personal God before the needs of other life, which should be treated with love, compassion and respect.