Part 3: Divine Revelation

Dear Internet Diary,

I believe in God because I feel that there is one God. I have this strange feeling of love and devotion for the Prophet of God.

My opinion that Satan does exist is about as difficult to disprove as your contention he doesn't, Pascal. I feel he exists because he appeared to me in a dream - saying that serving Jesus would only ruin me. Whether that was really Satan or me is hard to say since, according to that philiosophy instructor, it's possible neither he nor I exist. I don't know whose figment of imagination I might occupy or whether corporeal embodiment is possible if tacile measurements weren't possible.

During the peaceful hours of the early morning I was praying and waiting before the Saviour when He suddenly revealed Himself to me. I saw Him as clearly as anyone ever saw Him in the days of His flesh. I ceased to pray, and remained quiet and speechless in His Presence. The moments seemed too sacred for me to break the sweet silence by prayer. What could I have said to Him? Was He not the answer to all prayer?

In this place I feel a spirit…comes over me and moves in me…In this heat and harshness I feel a soft and gentle caress across my red and weary face…A Greater Force…God, Creator, Supreme of the Universe…nameless but for those who would provide a name to such.

Divine revelation certainly seems to come in varied forms! One of them being, erm, rather sexual in nature. There is a surprisingly great number of personal testimonies that are sexy like this. But, well, such is the nature of feeling His glory within you, the ecstasy of revelation, and that final, glorious, emotional release of repentance. Anyone have a cigarette?

The common form of "divine revelation" is technically termed "the warm fuzzies." This happens when, for explained and unexplained reasons, your heart feels warm and a sudden wash of pleasurable feeling comes over you. We pretend this has no earthly explanation so that we can claim to have been touched by the divine. Spiritual lift and enlightenment is not the sole domain of Christianity. Neither is a fantastic feeling of warmth and love, "in your heart." Of course, when these same feelings happen as a result of alcohol or drugs, it's coming from Satan. Satan gives good orgasm, too, I guess. I can testify that I have experienced rushes of adrenaline and a hyper-stimulated pleasure-center for emotional reasons only. As a matter of fact, it happened to me one Thursday evening in the seventies, around 8:15 as I watched "Happy Days." I discovered that lying on the couch watching tv was so pleasurable, I got goosebumps. If only every night in front of the tube were like that. Why it was "Happy Days" is anyone's guess.

Another form of revelation is what the believer sees as direct contact with a superstar of the religion. "Direct contact" is not necessarily Saint Therese sitting at your kitchen table, although you can read about it online all the time. As long as there is a vision, inside or outside the head, awake or dreaming, it's direct contact. Actually, the best time to have a vision is that twilight time in your brain, right before you go to sleep. It's then that your dreams can seem most real, especially if they wake you. But how can I deny it when a person claims that they really, truly were contacted by Our Blessed Blue-Burkahed Blonde? Well, how does one know, for sure, that the vision is coming from God? If you are forbidden from using your own moral judgement, how can you decide this is a good experience? Does the bible not say that Satan comes in pleasing forms, and can deceive you? Does the bible not say that God can deceive you? How do you know that your whole church isn't a deception by Satan? In a religious world, where reality is subject to God's Holy Whim, you can't be sure of anything. Better do what the church has been doing ever since about a hundred years after the agreed-upon death of Jesus: change your religion to fit current understanding. Everyone's doing it. After all, these days it's not demons or saints that come into our rooms at night and cause us to have sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming. It's aliens. Some of them come with divine revelations too, don't they, Rael?

Thanks for listening, diary.