Mar-Sa The Ultra-Girl Book One/Part Three The Girl of Tungsten Steel A HEROINE IS MADE, NOT BORN by Jim Robert Bader September 4, 2001 (First Copyrights Only) 00000000 000 000 000 vvvvvv 000 000VVVVVVVVVVVV000 000 VVVVVVVVV 000 000 VVVVVVV 000 000 VVVVV 000 000 VVV 000 00000000 Mar-Sa The Ultra-Girl by Jim Robert Bader Book One/Part Two The Girl of Tungsten Steel Chapter Twenty-Six. Unholy Revelations "I never thought that I'd ever admit to being licked by a library," Katie complained, "But I'm about ready to concede this battle." "Man-on-man!" Phoebe groaned as she lay flat on her back, "Let's give it a rest already! My head's so full of facts and information that I feel like I'm about to take finals!" "I hear you," Cathy murmured from underneath the pillow she had over her face, laying back on the sofa in Heather's study while she moaned aloud, "I'll bet priests don't do this much studying for the seminary, and if anyone ever told me I'd be burying my nose in this many books on religion, I'd have told them to go on rehab!" "The price of research is often diligence in pursuit of the raw data," Heather noted from behind her desk as she was still pouring through a volume taken from one of her shelves, "And I cannot myself rest while that insufferable buffoon feels smug and free to brag about his triumph over us godless heathens, so until we find something here that can be used to turn the tables..." "It's not that I don't agree with your sentiments on that," Katie replied, staring at the boxes piled on boxes full of books, notes, scrolls and reams of computer-printed data, "But frankly it could take months to sort through all this stuff, and we've only been at it for six hours straight..." "Is it that time in the morning already?" Phoebe groaned, "Somebody just shoot me! I gave up a night of fun and debauchery for this?" "Hey Boss!" Fiona called out as she wheeled in yet another stack of boxes, "These are the last ones from the archive, where do you want to put it?" "In the corner with the rest of the pile," Heather directed, "And thank you for working late like this. I know that it was somewhat on the spot..." "Hey, no problems for me, Heather," Fiona replied, "I'd like to help out, especially if it means sticking it to that bastard, Schiller." "Then have a seat and start reading," Katie urged, "We could use more help with our research." "Research?" Cathy said as she moved her pillow, "Don't you mean mental torture?" "I'm sorry to burden you all for my sake," Mar-Sa spoke up from her end of the study, "But it really is necessary for me to familiarize myself with all of this information. I know that I have only been on your world for a few months, but it is long since time that I made a careful and detailed study of the subject of your world's many religions. So much that you people take for granted is all so strange and new to me, and I have yet to understand just why certain people view the world through such theology-colored lenses since most of what you call 'revealed truth' seems to me to be nothing more than a crude sophistry made up of equal parts of hearsay analysis and untempered supposition." "Yeah," Phoebe sighed, "That's all right for you, Marsha, but who gets stuck having to cope with the spillover of thoughts in your head? I can't block it out anymore...and it's like having Sister Batril whispering in my mind all sorts of nonsense data..." "I'm sorry about that, Phoebe," Mar-Sa replied, "And I will try to make it up to you, but...well...as a researcher I find so much of this quite fascinating, yet at the same time quite frustrating as well. For example, in the Hebrew creation story we have the being you know of as God, or Yahweh, creating the earth before the sun and the moon are in existence, and time is measured in days even though the sun isn't created until the forth day, even though light itself is created on the first day, when Day and Night are officially brought into being. Not only that, but fish and birds are created on the fifth day, while land creatures come into being on the sixth, around the same time human beings come into existence. No room here for transitional forms, so it's not to wonder that theologians have such a problem with the teaching of evolution." "That's an old and very tired argument, my friend," Heather sighed, "So many well-meaning people of my acquaintance have tried to reconcile the seeming contradiction between the Bible story and what modern research has uncovered regarding the origins of life upon this planet, yet ultimately it all boils down to a desperate struggle to rationalize dogma in the face of intellectual challenge." "Sorry," Katie replied, "When it comes to this kind of research my Karma ran over your Dogma." "But wasn't that, like, an allegory or something?" Fiona wondered, "After all, if there's no sun and moon to count days, a day could last an eon..." "I'm afraid that argument is as specious as the one that has the Devil planting a false trail of a fossil record in shale rock to confused natural archeologists," Heather replied, "There really is no middle ground in the end, no blending of the faith with scientific methods, and anyone who argues to the contrary is only indulging in a wishful fancy. In the end one must face the truth that the authors of the creation myth were totally ignorant about the true age of the world and the order of events in which we came into existence. God did not breathe life into Adam from the raw clay of earthly matter anymore than He divinely inspired the authors to accurately record the line of events that led to a special creation." "Blasphemy," Cathy quipped, "You'll smoke a turd in purgatory for that one, Boss, or something along that nature. My priest used to go on for days and nights about how the godless unbelievers were going to gnash their teeth in the afterlife when they found out how much they were pissing off God by questioning the word of the faithful..." "Hey," Phoebe growled, "If God's so worried about what people believe, then He should have clarified the point about how many ages the world's been in existence...that or told Noah to build a bigger arc to fit all the dinosaurs." "Creation myths seem to be typical of every ancient society that has ever existed on your world, Phoebe," Mar-Sa noted, "My people had our own version, which turns out to be the garbled memories of our ancestors. Why then be so upset about this one?" "Because they used to burn people at the sake for questioning dogma here, Marsha," Phoebe replied, "And Pagans like me and Katie would've been tortured, then burned as witches." "The Church used to rationalize its harsh attitude towards heresy by claiming concern for the welfare of the souls of their victims," Heather added, "The Church claims today that it never tortured or killed anyone, that it was always the civil authorities that carried out their wishes, which sounds rather like what Pontius Pilate said when washing his hands of that execution order." "Never could understand that one," Katie remarked, "Since Pilate was a brutal man who ruthlessly carried out the policies of Caesar and never gave a damn about Jewish sensibilities, not to mention the fact that the Romans NEVER had any policy about letting a prisoner go for the Passover." "Don't you know?" Cathy smirked, "It's a mystery, you're not supposed to understand it." "Yeah," Katie snorted, "I'll bet that line was a great comfort to anybody who wound up in front of the Inquisition." "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition," Fiona quipped with a peculiarly arched tone that seemed to imply a humorous lilting. "Hah," Phoebe scoffed, "Even the Marquis de Sade never claimed that torturing somebody was so good for the soul that it didn't matter what you did to the body. Me, I'd rather enjoy life while I'm in the here and now, not wind up getting sacrificed over some bogus idea about God..." "But...Phoebe," Mar-Sa argued, "There may be a basis for believing in a supernatural power. You and Katie, after all, believe in something called Wicca, and...I had that experience when you died...when I felt a power...a voice...a woman's voice speaking into my mind..." "Yes," Heather looked up, "I was rather fascinated about that myself. Are you certain you didn't imagine the whole affair?" "I'm certain of it," Mar-Sa replied, "I don't know who or what that voice was...but it was definitely real, and she gave me back Phoebe..." "Hey, it's like I always said," Katie shrugged, "God is a woman." "You know, I really like that idea myself," Cathy remarked, "But how can you be so certain?" "I suppose all of us will find out sooner or later when we die," Fiona mused, "And maybe the scariest thing would be to find out that the Fundies were right all along...ever think about that?" "Not really," Katie said, "I know exactly what I've done in my life, both the good and the bad, and I can live with most of it. Besides, if a male God like Yahweh's even half the bastard that the Bible stories make him out to be, then he's got a lot more to answer for than you and me and the rest of us sinners put together!" "You've got that right," Cathy murmured, "In the Old Testament he comes across as an angry, bad-tempered old prude who never lifts a finger to help anyone who can't ultimately do him a return favor..." "Don't even get me started on that," Katie growled, "I may have been born Jewish but I was never Orthodox, and I've seen plenty of blood get spilled in the name of religion. My people and the Palestinians have been feuding for almost sixty years just because we can't agree on who God favored with the land rights, but we both claim descent from the children of Abraham..." "Actually," Mar-Sa spoke up again, "That in itself is a subject of some dispute according to what the scholars that I've been reading. The Bible about Abram and his sister-wife, Sarah leaving the land of Ur of the Chal'dees seems rather apocryphal given the how ancient the story is and the complete absence of any supporting archeological record. The story about him hearing a voice that told him to head south into the promised land of Palestine..." "Which was already inhabited even in those days," Heather duly noted. "Exactly," Mar-Sa noted, "Giving land that belongs to someone else hardly seems like the behavior of a just and honorable deity...and then there are stories told here about Abram, or Abraham, that just don't make any kind of sense, such as the two separate occasions when he pretends that he and his wife are not married so that he can avoid being killed when a powerful man covets his wife for himself..." "And let's not forget that famous act of child abuse when God almost had him sacrifice his son, Isaac," Cathy further noted. "Exactly," Mar-Sa noted, "Yahweh promises to make him the father of a great kingdom, then tells him to go forth into land that belongs to the people now known as the Cananites, and there he settles on the plains of Moreh, which doesn't correspond at all with the geological features of the Palestinian region. He wanders around a lot in and out of Egypt and Arabia before his nephew settles down in one of a pair of city-states near to the Dead Sea, which again makes no sense as archeologists have never been able to find any evidence that a city was ever there in the first place..." "That is because the story of Sodom and Gamorah is pure nonsense," Heather answered, "It was based on garbled memories passed down over generations as a morality play, but it's lost a lot of its real value in the retelling." "So what is the real story?" Phoebe asked. "That's easy," Fiona replied, "Somebody nuked them." "Weren't they, like, punished by God for being wicked places of debauchery and carnal lust?" Cathy half-seriously wondered. "Hardly," Heather sniffed, "The plains spoken of in the Bible were never located in Palestine. A research team some time ago traced their actual origins to Babylon itself, or rather to a city called Al Aquar located between the twin rivers known as the Tigris and the Euphrates. The mistranslation about a sea of salt has mislead researchers for centuries, just as always happens when Historians attempt to bend their research in order to conform with the stories of the Bible." "Which they often try to do," Katie sniffed, "Imagine how many guys try to make sense of the Old Testament stories but never think about consulting an authentic Jewish scholar, somebody steeped in both archeological and the history of the region." "Just so," Heather agreed, "The actual city was a center of worship for the Babylonian god Negral, the consort to the Death Goddess, Chernobog. It also happened to be located over one of the largest deposits of natural gas in the entire region of what is now a part of Iraq, gas deposits that sometimes bubbled up to the surface during natural land shifts, and on one such occasion it took nothing more than a spark to ignite this gas and set fire to an entire city. The fire was recorded as bursting out in hundreds of locations almost simultaneously, which hardened the mud buildings and effectively preserved them for the ages. There was no sign of war or looting at the location, nor any trace of a mass grave of charred bodies, meaning that the place was shortly thereafter abandoned as accursed of the Gods by the survivors." "Moral of the story there," Fiona smiled, "Don't build houses over large gas deposits." "But what about that stuff about the two angels and the mob that wanted to has sex with them and all that?" Phoebe asked. "Yet another translation error," Heather replied, "Consider that Sodom and Gamorah had recently been attacked by the five cities of the plain, again a reference to the Babylonian area. Abram and his shepherds had helped to drive off this scourge, making Lot an automatic hero to the people, but the memory of having so many of their citizens be roped into bondage could not have sat well with the survivors, so when a pair of strangers show up in town a committee of concerned citizens quite naturally came calling to ask for their identities. As Lot did not want to yield up guests to such an inquisition, being that it went against the custom of hospitality to your guests, he naturally tried to bribe these citizens by offering up his two virgin daughters in trade. When the citizens refused, well...that is where the story alleges that the Angels blinded the people and set fire to the city, but I leave it up to you to decide which explanation best fits the facts here." "Of course his daughters weren't too thrilled about almost getting gang-raped," Katie noted, "So after they lost their mother to the fire they got their father good and drunk and then got laid, and sometime later they gave birth to their sons Moab and Benami, the fathers of the Moabites and Ammonites, whom God later ordered destroyed by the Israelis..." "Just like the Israelis were later commanded to exterminate the Midianites, Amakelites, Jesubites and the entire tribe of Benjamin, all at God's direction," Heather further added, "Total genocide and ethnic cleansing of the entire region, yet when the Israelis failed in this mission God was angry and punished them with the Diaspora." "And yet none of this ever really happed according to history and the archeological record," Mar-Sa related, "There is no trace of widespread genocidal war at any time within the region. Nor did the Israelis appear to have any serious cultural or religious disputes with their neighbors prior to the seventh century BC, when they were alleged to have become a divided Kingdom. In fact the entire story from Joshua on down relates a series of battles and conquests that are utterly absent from any other source material, and even Jericho was already in a state of ruins before the first Israeli is even mentioned in the chronicles of the Egyptians or the Assyrians." "So we didn't do a good enough job of exterminating those people," Katie shrugged, "If God wanted them exterminated She should have done the job Herself." "And then there is the city of Jerusalem, which doesn't even factor in prominently as a significant metropolis prior to the 8th century BC. According to the archeological records there was nothing more than a hill fort guarding a well on that location during the time when King David was alleged to have founded a powerful nation along important trade routes. In reality the only trade going on was taking place up north in the northern Palestine region. The lands to the south were desolate wastes where only goat herders dwelled. Then, too, there is the even more confusing story about Moses, the Egyptian, whose entire exploits are in no way confirmed by any other source material, especially in the chronicles of the Egyptians." "That's because Moses was a carnival huckster with delusions of Messiahood," Katie snorted, "Egypt was once ruled by a group of Semites called the Hyksos, but a couple of centuries before Moses came along the Hyksos were overthrown by the Pharaoh Ahmose, who drove them all the way into the land of Canaan. He founded the 18th dynasty and ruled over both the lands of Egypt and Canaan, but several generations later a successor named Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhnaton and created the first cult of Monotheism that lasted only one generation before the priests put an end to that nonsense." "That's the thing I never did like about Monotheism," Fiona spoke up while leafing through a volume, "Priests with political ambitions always make themselves insufferable, but with many gods the competition keeps them halfway honest. But when I visited Ireland with my mother I found her homeland rife with sectarian strife with two sides arguing about which one has the better claim on the exact same god, and all because of some in-bred Egyptian who fancied himself a prophet..." "Yes," Mar-Sa agreed, "And according to these books, Egypt suffered a serious decline and a loss of influence during Akhnaton's reign, but when the priests of the old gods regained power they drove the followers to Akhnaton into exile..." "And one of those Monotheist guys was Moses?" Phoebe asked. "Possibly," Heather replied, "It would explain a lot, such as why there has never been any trace of the multitude of slaves supposedly liberated from bondage having crossed over into the Palestine region, while the priestly tribe of Levi that Moses belonged to was the only one without an ancestral territorial land claim. The Bible story alleges that Moses led a horde numbering over two million across the Red Sea into Arabia..." "Hah!" Katie snorted, "Not even a tenth of a tenth of that! And that's another translation error some hack in the early Christian church screwed up badly. The actual Hebrew words mean 'Sea of Reeds,' in other words a swamp, and if the Egyptians followed the Israelis into that then their chariots would have gotten bogged down in the mud. Parting the Red Sea just so a bunch of immigrants could walk along the bottom may work for the movies but I don't think you could even drive a truck across that length in less than a day, let alone move a couple million people." "You mean that you, as a Jew, can accept the idea that the story about Moses is a complete myth?" Cathy marveled. "Not only that," Katie replied, "But I'd even go so far as to compare the guy to the Ayatollah Khomeni. I mean...think about it...he leads a bunch of city-bred people into a wilderness without time enough to bake a decent loaf of bread, feeds them on some yucca-plant homespun that they call Manna from Heaven, brings them all the way to a mountain in the land of the Midianites then goes away for a couple of months to talk to God, and when he gets back he finds the people are worshipping the Moon Goddess Hathor and praying to return back to Egypt. So what does he do about it? Gathers a bunch of his friends and goes on a murderous killing spree that cows his followers into submission. He then leads them on a forty-year death march that winds up killing off the old guard and raising up a new army of dedicated fanatics in their place, who in turn get turned loose on the civilized peoples of the land of Canaan. I mean...what does that sound like to you? The birth of civilization?" "I would hardly classify it as that," Mar-Sa said, "And Jewish civilization does not appear to begin until well after the fall of the city of Lakish and the rise of the Assyrian Empire. Jerusalem appears to be a simple client state governed by a local King until the time of Hezakiah, who claimed to have found some scrolls in a temple that pronounced the laws known as Leviticus to the Jewish people." "Rather convenient that," Katie sniffed, "I wonder if the ink was even dry when they 'found' them." "And yet his attempted 'reforms' cause him to lay waste to the rival temples of his Assyrian overlords," Mar-Sa continued, "Who then came down from the north and lay waste to the entire southern region, forcing Hezekiah to pay a massive tribute that puts an end to his attempted revolt. Then, four generations later, a descendant of his named Josiah attempts the same thing all over with even more disastrous consequences. By that time the five primary books of the Old Testament are written and later on get redacted together into one story during the Babylonian Exile and the subsequent Diaspora. In other words, the entire history of the Israelis up to that point is subject to dispute and cannot be verified by any single independent document." "Until you get to the time of the Maccabees," Katie said, "Who were even more Taliban-like in their rejection of the Greek-influenced Selucid Empire." "But what does any of this mean, Marsha?" Phoebe asked, "Not all Jews owe a debt to history over what took place over two thousand years ago..." "I never said that they were at fault for anything, Phoebe," Mar-Sa replied, "I simply find all of this quite fascinating, even given that it is ridiculous to hold an entire culture at fault for the sins committed by their forefathers." "And yet without history you can't really understand how the whole mess about organized religion got started, Marsha," Cathy noted. "Yes, an so much of what is known about the history of the region contradicts the Old Testament in a very significant manner," Heather duly noted with a tired shaking of her long mane of blonde hair, "You can see now why this research can at times be so infuriating for the Historian and Archeologist to pour through and then attempt to explain to the average layman, and we are only just begun scratching the surface here. There are literally hundreds of documents and historical sources that must be compiled together to create a true and proper profile of the actual evolution of Judaism as a modern-day religion." "But this only covers the basis for founding the concept of a single God as a major religious notion," Mar-Sa said, "And much of that seems to have been loosely borrowed from Persian Zorastrianism, particularly the dualist concept of an opposing force of evil in the form of Ahriman, or Satan." "Satan's got nothing to do with authentic Judaism," Katie insisted, "Real Jews don't need a rival power to challenge the authority of Jehovah as the Supreme Being of the cosmos...Jehovah's more than enough as a source of both good and bad things that he doesn't need any help from a Devil." "The Devil's in the details, my friends," Fiona remarked, "And when you're Irish on your mother's side, like me, then you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between God and the Devil." "But this still doesn't tell me anything about what Schiller and his people mean when they talk about religion," Mar-Sa sighed, setting the book she had been reading back on the shelf where she had found it, "The Old Testament may have been a work of fiction, but the books that comprise the New Testament seem all to revolve around a historical figure named Jesus of Nazareth..." "Oh, I can tell you all about him, Marsha," Katie informed her, "Not that there's much to tell since he never really existed." "Say what?" Fiona looked up. "Excuse me?" Cathy blinked, "You sure about that?" "Absolutely," Katie replied, "There never was a guy named Jesus Christ from the town of Nazareth, just like there was never a town called Nazareth until some locals saw a great way to make some money by declaring their village an official tourist stop for pilgrims. The story's just the invention of a guy named Saul of Tarsus, who was hardly even authentically Jewish. His story's got nothing at all to do with history, it was all made up by a bunch of people who lived decades after the alleged events and who never actually lived through any of it or even knew anything about the Palestine that existed when Jesus was supposedly on his mission. Saul made the whole thing up to justify his crude attempt to synthesize Judaism with his own Pagan beliefs since he started out as a follower of Mithraism." "Now surely you must be joking," Heather reacted, "Jesus, whoever he was, was a highly influential figure who inspired one of the great faiths of all time..." "Oh, there was a guy who people now call Jesus the Christ," Katie replied, "But his real name was Yessus Ben Yussuf. He was a Nazarene, somebody who followed the tradition of not cutting your hair or shaving, a Jewish rabbi who followed the Pharisaic tradition of tending to the poor and oppressed of Jewish society, unlike the ruling Sadducees, who were pro-Roman. Yessus taught a doctrine of inclusion and tried to heal a deep rift that existed in the Jewish state during the Roman occupation. His message survived in a bunch of sayings that got recorded in a scroll now called the Book of Thomas, and what we can make out from those is that he preached that the spirit was more important than the body, that the things which unite us are more important than the things that divide us, and that holiness is found in trying to live a good life, not in making loud boasts about how devoted you are to paying alms to the Temple." "Why do you say that this Yessus existed but not Jesus?" Mar-Sa asked. "Because Jesus is a Greek word, and badly mispronounced," Katie replied, "Greek and Latin don't have 'J's' in their consonants, and neither does Hebrew or Aramaic. That means that Jesus is a made-up mistranslation of the name Yessus, but it's also the name that's been used for centuries to persecute and convert my people." "Yeah," Fiona reluctantly nodded, "I can see how that would kind of taint things for you..." "Jesus is also the transcendent figure of Christian mythology," Heather replied, "God made flesh and manifest, the living embodiment of God as a man, and thus the savior of humanity...or so the Christians tell us." "Hogwash!" Katie dismissed, "Jews don't believe in the concept of Original Sin, and who in their right mind could believe that all of humanity was damned for all time because of a mistake by our ancestors? That apple story was a slander against Eve, a myth that says that women are supposed to be submissive to men because it's all our fault for tempting Adam. But what God worthy of being worshiped creates men and women and gives them the ability to feel pleasure only to say that it's a bad thing? Especially when sex is the way in which we all came into being! I mean...what would humanity be without sex? Extinct, that's what!" "So you don't buy it that Jesus suffered on the cross to redeem the sins of the world and went to hell for three days and all that?" Cathy asked. "Pardon me while I retch," Fiona made gagging noises. "You tell me how one guy suffering on the cross is gonna make up for all the pain and suffering that all people have experienced throughout the ages?" Katie demanded, "And if dying on the Cross is supposed to redeem all Christians, then why aren't they noticeably better people than non-Christians? Why are there just as many criminals among true believers as there are proportionally among Atheists? Why do so many Christians go mad and kill their whole families while quoting from the Bible? How can Holy Wars exist if God's so powerful that he could put a stop to things by telling his followers to knock it off and stop blaming him for all their problems? For over a thousand years the Catholic church ran the show in Europe and tried to exterminate Jews for being 'Christ Killers,' but God didn't do anything about that, anymore than he prevented Hitler from bringing on the Holocaust...so you tell me why I should believe that Jesus is the savior of humanity? He sure didn't do anything for his fellow Jews when it really could have mattered!" "But why then do so many people believe that Jesus is a god if they have no evidence about him?" Mar-Sa asked. "Hey, that one's so easy even I can answer it," Phoebe replied, "You don't need proof to believe in something when you really, really, really desperately need to believe in something." "Huh?" Mar-Sa blinked, "You've just lost me..." "So much for the two-way mind-meld," Cathy softly chuckled, setting aside her pillow, "What she means is that people have this really deep need to believe in some kind of spiritual or transcendent value, Marsha. Very few guys I know can tolerate the idea of a totally dead universe in which we're utterly all alone and without somebody out there to care for us. Even if we have to invent an imaginary friend who loves and forgives us for all our failures and imperfections and stuff, it's better than having nothing and no one to believe in." "And there is the rub," Heather sighed, "To try and convince people who need to believe in a Messiah that they need to believe first in themselves and then see that we are all a part of something greater, something divine that links us all as humans..." "Something...transcendent?" Mar-Sa replied, "Something greater than flesh and blood, something that comes from the spirit, from within?" "Yeah," Katie replied, "But without the hokey mumbo jumbo that the Church uses to fleece people, like believing that God will cast them all into hell unless they crawl on their hands and knees begging for mercy and forgiveness and hoping that the selfish creep will even pay them any attention..." "Cool it, Katie," Phoebe said as she sat upright, "Marsha's confused enough as it is without your usual rant about the Lions and the Christians. Let's just say that the Fundies are the real problem here, and guys like Schiller who take advantage of the gullible sheep they fleece. Basically you got on the one hand a bunch of confused and ignorant people who talk and act like robots hooked on valium, and on the other hand a bunch of guys who talk like used car salesmen trying to sell you on the idea that there's this invisible man who lives up in the sky who sees and hears everything and has this cosmic lists of dos and don'ts, and if you break any one of his big No-Nos, then he throws you into a pit of eternal suffering forever and ever..." "But he loves you!" Cathy chimed, joining Phoebe and Fiona as they chorused, "And he wants money...lots and lots of money!" "You three should take it on the road," Heather mused, "Actually the true Fundamentalist believes in the concept of the end of days, an imagined time of the future when the forces of light and darkness will meet in a final battle to decide the fate of eternity, and the side that wins, God's side, inherits a universe purged of all evil, while the losing side, the side of the Devil, spends a thousand years in turmoil and then...just ceases to exist. Oblivion for the fallen, a life of bliss and contentment for the Saved..." "Sounds like Communism to me," Katie sat upright, "The thing about Christianity is that it claims to be divinely guided by the teachings of Jesus, but as Yessus himself was quoted to say, 'By their fruit shall ye know them,' and the fruit of Fundamentalism is very bitter indeed." "You got that right," Fiona rolled her eyes, "First they want your mind then they want your wallet and then they possess you body and soul. It's like they sign their names in blood or something when they enter the church roster, and the kinds of things they do in the name of their warped ideas about God..." "All the while claiming that Jesus is their personal Lord and Savior," Cathy noted, "And that belief in Him protects Them from evil." "But how can that be?" Mar-Sa asked, "How can the teachings of a man who preached tolerance and peace produce followers who stress exactly the opposite?" "He who is not with me is against me," Fiona quoted, "It's like that with every religion...you have your sincere believers, and then you have your mind-fucked drones goose-stepping along to the same exact choir." "I'm afraid that is more or less correct," Heather sighed, "Religion is meant to inspire one and uplift the spirit, but Fundamentalism enslaves the soul and locks the mind into the trap of absolute certainty. Dogma is denial of the ability of the seeker to find their own personal truth within religion, and it is blind trust placed in the words of people long dead and beyond contradicting." "Hey, it's like I said before," Katie remarked, "Blame it on Saul. He's the one who turned Yessus into Jesus in the first place." "How do you mean that?" Fiona asked. "Saul was from a Romanized town called Tarsus," Katie replied, "He was raised among pagans and got exposed at an early age to the pagan ideals of the Persian cult of Sol Ivictus Mithras. He tried to get more in touch with his Jewish roots but failed to make the entrance exams and wound up getting a job at the Temple as a part of their security guard system. He later wrote a cock-and-bull story claiming to be a student of the Pharisaic scholar known as Gamael, but his writing is so fragmentary and jumbled with many misquoted lines and self- contradictions that he comes across as a sophomoric imbecile who would never have made it out of grade school. No way could he have been a top-notch religious scholar like he claimed to be, especially since his understanding of Judaism was laughably pathetic." "How do you mean that?" Heather asked, visibly intrigued. "Well, take for example his ideas about the Eucharist," Katie explained, "It was a Mithaic ritual involving the use of wafers and wine that are mysteriously transmuted into the blood and flesh of Mithras. He made that the central-most pillar of his ideas about the mission of Jesus and described the Last Supper in those terms...only it's against Jewish law to drink blood even in symbolic rituals, and eating the flesh of a dead man is cannibalism. That's why Jews everywhere were horrified by Saul's message and wanted to stone him, but he claimed Roman citizenship on his father's side and appealed to Caesar for justice. That's when he started writing those stupid Epistles of his out of a jail cell, trying to defend his activities and justify himself by claiming to be an unknown disciple of Jesus." "But why would he have lied about being a religious scholar?" Mar-Sa asked. "Padding his resume," Fiona replied, "Most men do tend to lie when you catch them with their pants down." "Exactly," Katie said, "He lied about his training in Judaism because he was on trial for his life, and he colored his epistles with misquotations from Gamael and other Pharisaic scholars, claiming ties to the Jerusalem-based movement of the Apostles and claiming his authority came straight from Jesus himself. Problem is, in a lot of areas, he directly contradicts Jesus." "In what way?" Heather asked. "Well, there's a lot of little things he says that run contrary to the quotes in the Gospel of Thomas," Katie remarked, "But the key difference is that Yessus stresses that he is not out to change the laws of Moses but to fulfill the prophesy of something he called the 'Son of Man,' which is NOT the same thing as the Messiah. But Saul, who later calls himself Paulos, wanted to include non- Jews in his mission and wound up undermining the authority of Leviticus by saying that the Laws of Moses were not important, or not as important as simply believing in Jesus as the son of God, which was blasphemy in those days since most Jewish scholars would have argued that God could not be incarnated as a mere mortal, let alone a criminal executed for claiming to be their King." "So Paul lied about his mission," Phoebe sniffed, "Or maybe he was just crazy enough to think that he really had met Jesus." "You wouldn't know it to go by what he considered his mission," Katie said, "And Paul, not Peter or the other Apostles, is the real founder of Christianity. Hell, the word Christos was coined by him when he started out in Antioch. And that business he said about persecuting Christians and carrying letters of arrest into Syria? More bullshit! Antioch wasn't under direct Roman authority, they were an ally and an officially recognized client state. No way could even the Samhedran authorize the arrest of members of an outlawed sect, so Saul couldn't possibly have had official backing at the time that he was riding out to Damascus." "But wait," Cathy raised a finger, "Weren't the Pharisees the enemies of Jesus?" "No way," Katie shook her head, "The Pharisees weren't the party in power controlling the Samhedran, they were more like country Rabbi who preached to the common people a moderate message about love, tolerance and faith, very much the same things that Yessus talked about. In fact, I'd bet even money that Yessus was a Pharisee, just like I'm positive that he was married and had a kid by his wife, Mary of Magdala." "The prostitute?" Fiona asked. "Show me where in the Bible it calls her that," Katie sniffed, "She was only described as a woman out of whom seven demons were cast by Yessus, which is a neat way of alluding that she had a shady past, possibly as a former worshipper of Belial, the fertility goddess. The thing you've got to remember is that Jewish law required that a Rabbi had to be married, and if a woman was found alone with a man who wasn't a relative or her husband she could get stoned to death as an adulteress. The fact that Yessus was called a Rabbi at the time and that Adultery was never listed among the crimes he's alleged to have committed, it goes to follow that he was following Jewish law and had a wife to support him since Jewish women were the ones who controlled the family finances." "A sensible system," Heather remarked, "Far better than letting a man have control of the family fortune." "Yeah, well...wives supported their husbands while they went off to study the Talmud," Katie explained, "And Rabbis were also required to have a job skill that they could use to generate money on the side, like...say, carpentry. But if it sounds like a stretch to think of Jesus as a married man, keep in mind that he had a Jewish mother who was very much alive at the time, and to think of any guy living to the age of thirty without his Jewish mom arranging a marriage would have been a miracle to blow away that Loaves and Fishes thing." "Also too," Heather noted, "Recall that in the Gospel of John, Jesus is described as the Bridegroom at the Wedding of Canaan." "Right," Katie said, "The guy was obviously storing wine for a big party he was planning on having later with his buddies, but they ran out of the regular stuff, so Yessus's mother told him to break out the good stuff, which was hidden away in jars that were supposedly full of water. No miracle there, just the way you tell a story whose moral is that you should serve guests the good stuff first and leave the bad stuff for later when you're too drunk to know the difference." "Oh really?" Fiona asked with interest, "Then what about the Loaves and Fishes, or the walking on water?" "Don't really know about them," Katie shrugged, "They might be miracles, or maybe they just found a lot of fish in a hurry and had a bakery sale going near where Yessus was giving a speech. Walking on water is easy, you just run very, very fast and know where all the loose stones are." "What about healing the sick and helping the blind to see?" Cathy wondered. "Medical knowledge wasn't very good back then, so a little knowledge would seem like a miracle, though faith healing is possible," Katie waved a hand at Mar-Sa, "But when it comes to healing Lepers...Jewish society had two kinds, those with a disease and those who got treated like pariahs. Judaism is obsessed with cleanliness and purity, and if someone does an unclean act they have to atone for it and seek God's forgiveness. If someone came along and told a social pariah that they were forgiven it would be considered the same as curing a Leper. As for casting out demons and performing exorcisms, heck, any halfway competent Spiritualist could do that in Japan..." "What about raising Lazarus and the Resurrection on the Cross?" Heather wondered. "Lazarus sounds like a mystical initiation ritual where the initiate pretends to be dead before awakening into a new spiritual life," Katie replied, "But raising the dead ain't exactly all that novel, and lots of mystical traditions have Yogis and Fakirs who claim to be able to do the exact same thing. As for that business with the cross, well...the alternative view to believing it's a miracle is that Yessus faked his death on the cross with a sponge full of drugged vinegar, which made him pass out after only being on the cross for a couple of hours. A Roman centurion prodded him with a spear to confirm he was dead and he bled like a living man, not a corpse. Then, in total contradiction of usual Roman practice, they let the family take the body for burial rather than to leave it to rot, which was what the Romans did with everybody else. Maybe the family bribed Pontius Pilate, then wrapped the body in a cloth soaked with aloe vera, which most definitely was NOT the normal burial practice of the Jews and was only done with a living body. A couple of days later, when Yessus revives from his trance, he's healed up enough to move to a safe hiding place, and hence the empty burial chamber. When he shows up a few days after his alleged death, appearing before his followers in the flesh, he's still pretty weak but is strong enough to say that he's come back from the dead in order to fulfill prophesy, and who's gonna doubt him besides Thomas? Then he flees into Egypt and isn't heard again until Masada, at which point he finds out about the Paulines and what they've been preaching in his name, but since he's an old man at the time...who'll believe that he's the real Yessus?" "That is...certainly a very interesting way of interpreting the traditions," Heather murmured in a thoughtful tone of voice. "Heh, now you guys know what I've had to go through on a regular basis," Phoebe grinned, "Six years of getting a crash course on bible stories and I think I've finally started to build up a tolerance for the stuff...either that or I'm just tripping." "But what makes you so sure that the story in the Bible is just a myth?" Fiona wondered. "Because for Christianity to be the ultimate truth, then every other religion in the world would have to be false," Katie said flatly, "And people who never heard the name Jesus would be damned to Hell for all eternity. Your people on Wolframa would all be automatically damned for the rest of time, Marsha, and everybody who ever lived before Jesus would be similarly bound for Hell, unless God granted them special dispensation." "Good point," Cathy sniffed, "I know my friend, the one who committed suicide, was denied normal church burial rights because killing yourself is a sin, but I remember her as a very sweet and caring person, and I could never believe that was so evil that she deserved eternal damnation." Mar-Sa looked thoughtful before turning to Katie before saying, "So what you have told me so far is that a myth grew up around a man who only wanted people to be more tolerant of one another, and yet it is a myth that has great power...over a billion people believe that this Jesus was a god..." "Not just any God," Katie said, "THE God above all Gods, before whom no other god can exist and all that. Then you have the Muslims, who think that Jesus was a prophet and Mohamed followed after him, and their ideas have their roots in Jewish tradition since they claim to be the children of Abraham through Ishmael, his firstborn son. Add to that the Eastern and Western Orthodox churches, the Protestants and Mormons, the Scientologists and Saucer Freaks, and then you get to the Buddhists and the Hindu before you get down to the Shinto beliefs that I've studied in Japan..." "I think I get what you mean," Fiona remarked, "No one god can please everybody, just like the Loyalists and the Catholics in Belfast can't even agree on which holidays to celebrate. After a while you begin to wonder if God even listens to their prayers anymore, or...maybe he was never there to begin with." "Oh, I'm not saying that there is no God," Katie assured them, "But I think that the real God must be a woman, and the Christian notions about God just make no sense when they call everybody else's ideas phony." Mar-Sa turned away, her expression unusually grim, and she glanced out the window before saying, "I think we have studied enough for one night, but I look forward to the morning and my next meeting with Astarte. She is a very...curious woman, and I had the oddest sense about her..." "Like in...evil?" Cathy asked. "No," Mar-Sa replied, "Definitely not evil, though I sense a great evil is hovering around her like a shadow, as if she were in terrible danger and needed protection...beyond what that hired bodyguard of hers could provide." "Oh yeah," Phoebe smiled, "Handsome guy, built like a rock and with a face like a male model..." "Oh yeah," Fiona smiled, "Now that's the kind of bodyguard that I'd hire if I was worth three quarters of a billion dollars..." "He's gay," Katie offhandedly declared. "Huh?" Phoebe blinked, "What makes you say that?" "Because he spent several hours around us and never even checked any of us out," Katie explained, "But the minute he passed by a cute guy his eyes went swerving like a refrigerator magnet." "Good call," Cathy remarked, "Philippe is more than just a bodyguard, he's a special friend of Astarte's, but they're not romantically involved since we happen to know that Astarte's as big a dyke as me." "Really?" Phoebe said, then blinked, "And she's interested in Marsha?" "Down girl," Katie cautioned, "Don't get your feelers up so fast until you know her intentions..." "It will be all right, Phoebe," Mar-Sa assured her, "I don't think Astarte is interested in me in that sense, but if she does make it a point then I'll inform her that I am already...committed." "You'd better...huh?" Phoebe blinked again then said, "Committed?" "Uh oh," Fiona smirked, "Somebody said the dreaded 'C' word..." "But I think dear Mar-Sa has an excellent idea just the same," Heather nodded, "It's late, we're tired and we've been pouring over old tomes so long that I'm feeling like going Old Testament on Schiller's ass..." "Oooo, kinky," Cathy smiled, "You want I should get the butt-plug and hose so we can give him an enema?" It was a testament to how late it was and the tired state of mind that she was in that Heather actually paused to consider the suggestion, then at last dismissed it with a sigh, "Some other time. For now to bed, and by that I do mean sleeping." "Awwww..." Cathy pouted. "Yes, to bed," Mar-Sa agreed, smiling at Phoebe and Katie, though in her mind there was a different issue at stake beyond the sharing of comfort and warmth, her thoughts flashing over the information that she had just absorbed in one night, knowing that she had to process it through meditation if she were to make sense of the whole affair...assuming that anything sensible could result of so much contradictory data. She hoped that Astarte might have the answers that she was seeking, but in truth she doubted that it could be all that simple, and with the hateful words of Schiller still echoing in her mind she knew that the coming day would mean a confrontation was in the offing. She had to resolve the mystery and soon over what these Earthers called religion, though never before this day had she ever felt so out of place and alien to their culture. But if the answers that she sought were to be found with the sultry demoness then perhaps it was fate that had brought the both of them together...fate or a common destiny, and whatever came of the morning she knew that she was taking a larger step beyond the sphere of her own knowledge, and if at the end a greater mystery awaited then she would have to face it directly, just as she had done from the moment she set foot on her new homeworld, hoping as always that the new day would hold a bright and better future... It was early the following morning with the sun only just beginning to climb over the horizon. Mar-Sa found Astarte standing a short distance away from a parked stretch limousine, posed along a rail overlooking a rise in the park that offered a breathtaking view of the city skyscape. Mar-Sa descended with hardly a sound and came to rest a short distance from the mysterious redhead, nodding slightly towards the nearby Philippe, who nodded back in token acknowledgement. However, before she even had a chance to speak she heard the unearthly rumble of the sultry demonic heiress. "So," Astarte said without turning around, "You've indulged your passion for research and applied your intellect to the solution of a problem...and what has that formidable mind of yours accomplished so far, my dear friend?" "Nothing," Mar-Sa said as she stood lightly off to the right and behind the leather-clad redhead, "All I managed to do was convince myself that Schiller and his kind are even crazier than I'd suspected. I mean...what man ransoms his soul to have power and riches while ignoring the most basic tenets of the religion he professes to adhere to?" "A most interesting point," Astarte replied as she studied the sunrise set against the bay, "And I would say that such a man is as much a lost soul as anyone to whom he professes his devotion. Such a man turns to religion for answers, but the answers he seeks are not to be found in any book of revelations, and by turning his mind over to the words of dead prophets he admits to the weakness of distrusting his own wisdom. Indeed, it is a cardinal point with these Fundamentalists that human wisdom is not to be trusted, that questioning the authority of the Bible is tantamount to doubting the authority of their God, and as such is blasphemy and forever to be avoided. Yet you and I, as outsiders, can see things from a different light and ask the questions that they dare not to ask, seek the answers that they dare not consider and perceive the possibilities that are beyond the limits of their understanding." Mar-Sa looked at the other woman's profile before saying, "You knew what I would find even before you gave me this Bible," she held it out in hand, "You let me form my own conclusions after reading all of the books that I could find on the subject..." Astarte half-turned to regard her, "I anticipated that you would not be able to rest until you formed your own conclusions. So...tell me, my friend, what is it that have you discovered?" "That what Katie said was the truth," Mar-Sa replied, "There really is a major difference between Christianity and the life of Yessus Ben Yussuf. That for most of the last two thousand Earth years a totally false doctrine invented by a psychotic visionary has ruled the lives of people who ought to know better. That Monotheism itself is an irrational idea that perversely claimed hold over human imagination some time ago, and that I really am a stranger to this and the type of thinking that would surrender free will to the authority of something so deeply perverted..." "Your mentor, Katie, does not know everything," Astarte cautioned, "There is more to the story of Yessus than either of you know, more than you can know since the facts have been suppressed and the knowledge considered so dangerous that it cannot be entrusted to ordinary people." "So, what is the truth?" Mar-Sa asked, "Was he a god or a man?" "Define God," Astarte now fully turned to regard Mar-Sa, and this time she was not using her sunglasses to conceal her unearthly eyes, looking up into Mar-Sa's puzzled expression before adding, "Mortals speak a lot about things for which they can have no direct knowledge, but my people are a bit closer to the source, being long-lived and insightful, and I have had access to records not available to the denizens of this plane of reality. As such I can tell you with some authority that Yessus, Jesus, call him by whatever name you will, once did live and breathe and doubt himself the same way as you and I might do. If little else told about him is true, then the myth is still a story about inspiration and promise. On that level it can be taken seriously as gospel, and the rest...is mere elaboration." Mar-Sa stared at the opaque eyes of the other woman, attempting to see past their milky exterior and failing in spite of her greatly enhanced senses, "Why go around with subtlety and riddles? Why not just come out and say what you mean directly?" "Forgive me," the redhead replied, "But I rather doubt that you would be inclined to take the word of a self-admitted demoness that there is a purpose behind religion, all religions. After all, consider the source. My kind are known to be deceitful and treacherous..." "I try not to judge anyone on appearance," Mar-Sa assured her. "And pleased am I to hear this," Astarte smiled enigmatically, "But still...can you honestly say that it would mean as much to you if I gave you my side of the matter rather than have you arrive at your own conclusions? Understand, I have nothing but the highest respect for your intellect and so I trusted you to be as inquisitive as I once was when searching for my answer." "And what answers have you found?" Mar-Sa asked her. "That an old Earth poet once said it best," Astarte replied, "There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Or perhaps I should say that you should first examine what it is that you believe before deciding what is and is not possible, my dear Mar-Sa of Ninjarma." "What I believe?" Mar-Sa asked in surprise. "It is as good a place to begin as any other," Astarte informed her, "For example, your people long ago discovered that the Universe itself appears to behave in a manner that suggests an orderly or coherent state that underlies the seeming chaos of our existence..." "How did you know that?" Mar-Sa asked in surprise. "I read it in one of your articles," Astarte replied, "Being a friend of Heather's I naturally had reserved an advanced copy of the magazine that you and she have had published." "Um....well," Mar-Sa said somewhat awkwardly, "It is true that we believe in a hidden order to existence, just as reality itself is subject to manipulation by subtle influences that we call the invisible attractors..." "And do these hidden attractors not imply that there is a state resembling intelligence underlying the cosmos as we perceive it?" Astarte persisted, "Just as the imaginary wall separating the subject from the observer does not actually exist on a quantum state of reality? That by changing our perceptions of reality we can have an unconscious effect upon the reality of our observance?" "Um...well," Mar-Sa replied, "It's true that there is no line of separation between any two points in our reality..." "And then there is the curious phenomenon, which you related, regarding the survival of your lover," Astarte continued, "According to you at the moment when you doubted yourself, when your own powers seemed insufficient to revive her, a voice answered your call and gave her back to you...does that not seem rather curious if, in fact, there is no higher power than our own intelligence?" "Um...I think I see what you're getting at," Mar-Sa said, "But I'm not sure if I'd characterize it as intelligence if you mean to imply that as proof of a higher being..." "What about a reflective being who embodies our thoughts, hopes, wishes and aspirations?" Astarte continued, "Have you never wondered about the phenomenon of a group mindset, the effect created when dozens, if not hundreds of people, all concentrate on the exact same thing at approximately the same time, much as fans at a rock concert focus their attention towards a stage and the performers who reside upon it? So much concentration, in effect, that the performer feels uplifted?" "Um...I don't really know about that," Mar-Sa replied, "Large gatherings of people are impossible within the domed cities of Wolframa..." "Then think about what you experienced just yesterday while attending your debut," Astarte pointed out, "With thousands of people looking on in amazement as you quite literally descended from the heavens. Surely you, being telepathic, were aware of the sea of latent psychic energy that was pooling about you when you mounted the stage over yonder?" "Oh," Mar-Sa faintly blushed, "Yeah...I do remember what that felt like. There was so much energy...so many minds, thoughts emotions..." "You found it overwhelming," Astarte smiled, "Don't be embarrassed, it is quite natural for you to find yourself at the center of a spotlight, given that you are the closest thing to a heavenly being that the people here have ever witnessed. Now, imagine the jealousy and resentment that Schiller felt towards you, seeing you receive so much adulation that he thought should have been his to claim." "But...I never meant to..." Mar-Sa started to protest. "It does not matter to him whether or not your intentions were pure," Astarte warned her, "Men like Schiller cast judgement long before they hear all of the facts. The truth is that you were stealing his thunder, and he naturally sought to denounce and belittle you by calling you the one thing that plays upon the popular prejudice of this society, the image of the Whore and Temptress." Mar-Sa was surprised to find herself bristling at the memory, and she managed to say between grit teeth, "He had no right to call me names like that..." "No indeed," Astarte replied, "So the question is...what are you prepared to do about it?" "Huh?" Mar-Sa blinked, "I don't..." "Let he who is without fault cast the first stone," Astarte smiled, "And by now you are very much aware that Schiller has more than his own share of skeletons in the closet that he would rather not have be dragged into the light of day. You know him for what he is, a false prophet, deliberately misleading and taking advantage of the uninformed and easily manipulated masses. Such men are thieves who steal from the very god whom they profess to worship, and as such are criminals who should be exposed for their sins." "But won't that make me little better than he is?" Mar-Sa asked. "It all depends on how you approach the issue," Astarte replied, "If you become the very thing he claims you to be then you brand yourself as an enemy of his God. If, on the other hand, you approach him within the context of his own religion..." Mar-Sa started to get a gleam of what the demoness was saying, "You mean...bag the lion in his own den?" "That is certainly one way of putting it," Astarte smiled, "And you must admit that you are better suited to this task than am I. But keep in mind that your foe is not a single individual or group but rather the very force of evil that they embody. It is a movement that would describe you as its enemy merely for existing, a mindset that treats the concept of God as though an angry father was casting judgement on a spoiled and wretched humanity. The Angry God of the Old Testament who flouts the very concept of a kind and loving Jesus while exploiting His name to make a profit at the expense of the very poor and innocent to whom the historical Jesus showed great mercy. Think of the phenomenon of a group mind that envisions their god as possessing the wrath and temper of a Moses-like prophet, stripped bare of humanity's darker vices of lust, sensuality and greed, then picture those vices pooling into a dark shadow that haunts the church's image of the divine, a shadow that takes the form of the Angry Godhood and is labeled as 'Satan.' Then you will know that the enemy to the Fundamentalist is Christ himself in negative aspect." "You mean...they create their own Devil to justify their own excesses?" Mar-Sa asked. "I mean that the Devil is central to their whole reason for existence," Astarte replied, "And without Him to frighten and cow the masses they lose all justification for their Redemption myth. And yet the truth that they avoid seeing is that the Devil has no power that they do not give to him. A man may be tempted to perform evil, but a man may resist temptation. Such is not the thinking of those to whom temptation is everything and self-indulgence is easily rationalized under the heading, 'The Devil made me do it.'" "And Schiller...is that Devil?" Mar-Sa reasoned. "He is his own worst vice and enemy," Astarte explained, "A parasite who thrives on justifying his own excess. Understand, I do not quarrel with Christians and their ideology...to me the teachings of ben Yussuf are very elegant and inspirational, and I do not like to see such words being twisted in the mouth of one who seeks only to pervert this message. The sayings of Jesus have been a comfort for many in this world who suffer unjust persecution. Surely there is no finer message to be found in literature than the admonition that we must not hate our enemies, that we should not do evil in return for evil, and that vengeance is best reserved for the divine order that governs fate. When Jesus admonished his followers to make their deeds a testimony to their faith, to give to charity and perform acts of mercy that would shine like a beacon to all the nations, he did not envision a world of progroms and inquisitions with heresy trials and enclaves deciding the true intent of His words while crushing dissent and all freedom of opinion. Give a theologian political office and he will act in accordance to what he believes God would do if he had all of the 'facts.' That is why men like Schiller must be resisted and opposed, but not through violent means that would only serve to sustain their self-gratifying sense of persecution." "I...think I see what you mean," Mar-Sa slowly nodded, "But what of the many contradictions in the beliefs of ordinary Christians...?" "Leave them to their own vision of the divine," Astarte counseled, "If men and women choose to follow a Pope, Priest, Imam or Shaman they are well within their rights. It is only when they attempt to impose their beliefs upon others that they cross the line that should never be crossed, and as such set themselves up as a target for easy rebuke. Always remember, turning the other cheek is a sign of strength of character, but one only has two cheeks to spare, and then...there is payback." For the first time in many hours Mar-Sa smiled, "I think I know exactly what you mean. And thank you." The elegant demoness waved a hand in dismissal, "Think nothing of it, simply the words of one pilgrim who has traveled a bit further down the same road from yourself. I should never pretend to be a pillar of wisdom and virtue, my friend, but I am and shall always be your friend if you are ever again in need of such spiritual counsel." "I'll try and keep that in mind," Mar-Sa nodded, "You've helped me a lot to clear up some doubts that I was having." "That was always my intention," Astarte replied, turning to look off into the distance once again, "Just think of it this way...right now the man who tormented you is preparing himself for a day of prayer and alms. This being Sunday, his worshippers are gathering to hear the sermon that he intends to deliver on how he drove you away and exposed you to the masses. I should much like to see what happens when he prepares to deliver that televised sermon..." "Then you'd better tune in and watch," Mar-Sa replied, "Because I promise you that you won't be disappointed." With that Mar-Sa took to the skies again, levitating up into the air, feeling uplifted and warmed by the sun as it greeted her with a bright and promising new morning. Astarte watched her go before placing her sunglasses back over her opaque eyes and then she turned and walked back over to the limousine even as the window rolled down to permit the current occupant to address her directly. "Very well done, Astarte...you handled that quite well." "Thank you, Magnus," Astarte replied, "I knew that she would find her way soon enough. All I had to do was nudge her a little and the rest was in the hands of her friends and loved ones." "And a very impressive display of tact that was," Magnus noted, "I should very much enjoy listening to the reverend Schiller's program this morning. I dare say that it will be a most memorable occasion." "Like you say, Big Daddy," Philippe sniffed in amusement, "Me, I intend to record the whole thing in digital. Could be worth a lot as a bootleg copy, Oui?" "Then put me in for an early order," Magnus gave another rare smile before adding, "Ms. Summers has the ball this time, and I only wonder how certain others will receive this particular divine revelation..." For comments and criticisms contact me at: shadowmane@ridgenet.net X Page 138 of 138 Mar-Sa, the Ultra Girl Book One/Part Three By Jim Robert Bader Chapters 20-27 First Copyrights Only -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- If you wish to check out my other works, Please check out my Fanfiction webpage at: http://s11.sexshare.com/~jbader/jimbader.html All related chapters of this series can be found there along with my other works.