People are weird. Since I'm no shrinking violet when it comes to unsolicited opinion, I hear lots of questions. Many of these are not questions at all, but unconcealed challenges. Lately, people demand I obey "God". I object, at least until the unlikely moment that we agree on the definition and reason.

Assertions of "God's Supreme Authority" invite my personal comment to stitch a border around common wisdom and presumptions of "God", gods" and the Universe and Everything. (credit loosely owed to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.) Euthanasia, Pro-Life, Reproductive Rights, Gay Rights, Gay Marriage, Prayer in School, Blessings on our every war, tax and conquest, Who Owns My Body? Civil Rights, Just Wars, Taxes, Obedience and Servitude to Authority . . . the boring list goes on . . I left out the quotation marks because they are boring, too.

The common value of all that is their Legal Argument is based upon their anchor in the subjective recreations of religion and a view of morality established by a God or gods. (God and gods being some supreme or at least mildly superior semi-conscious intellect(s) capable of creating what is from what is not and of shuttling those of us who are unfortunate to achieve the notice and irredeemable ire of that intellect to some form of indescribable agony for ever and ever amen.)

Why is this stupid thing the law? or Why should this stupid thing be the law? "Because God Said So.", it is pronounced.

It seems to me that the argument and question presented may each rest upon a fallacy. The fallacy is the presumption is that there is "God" or even "gods" inherent in the nature of the Universe such as "She Who Must Be Obeyed!" (She, A History of Adventure, by Henry Rider Haggard.

With faulty premises, conclusions are difficult. With false premises, valid conclusions are essentially impossible and confusion reigns supreme. Belief is the art of abandoning reason, proof, examination and conclusion. Is it any wonder that so many of us are confused by treasonous Representatives, pedophile priests, boy-love Senators, amoral businessmen, hypocritical Christians, faithless clergy and policies and laws which emanate from their jowly collusions? Ah, but we must believe what is not. It is inherent of the brain to know what is not and to show us the fantasy. (That is true and another essay at some other time.)

Suffice to say, never jump out of a perfectly good airplane with a back pack that you "believe" holds a "parachute" unless you are only a step from the ground and the plane is not moving. The passage from altitude to earth under the influence of gravity is the wrong time to exercise prudence and intelligence in the examination of your premise/parachute.

Part of the problem of the universe is that it is too much to comprehend. Hence, confusion reigns the attempt to understand it all. The experts know nothing that they claim to know.

Submission = Islam.
Submission to belief and faith = Christianity and most others.
Show me a religion which does not in the most basic form, preach submission.

If you get serious about "God", the Universe and Everything, you find that what humanity's philosophers are saying has nothing to do with God, the universe and everything. They are saying it is all too much to grasp and understand without personification. They say submit to that reality. Since total reality it is unknowable, give it a name and try, but do not be dismayed at the impossibility of understanding it. In the ideal, accept it for what it is, if you can, without complicating things by personifying the inexplicable.

If "God" is what it is often said to be, it is All, for all time, space and probability and of all things improbable and impossible. That being the case, God includes us and we are part of God and therefore to submit is to be satisfied that we are part of God, incapable of being anything other than that piece of God that we are. Regardless of what we do and what is done to us, we are and cannot alter fact. Does it matter then, if one views the Universe as God or God's creation, or as a huge blunder of impossible outline? I think not.

If God is, then God is and it is the same for any who might argue for or against the fact. It is a done deal. Good and evil may exist, but they are internal, temporal and relational elements of the same compound.

If God is not, the Universe is regardless of no God, no amount of belief, logic, argument or discovery will change the fact. Again, we must submit to what is, because it is and cannot be changed. God, good and evil are irrelevant, temporal and relational concepts absent "God".

God or no God. We are a part of the Universe. We submit willingly or by default. Before we were born, while we live and after we die, we exist in different form, organization and manifestation but share the same energy and matter of the Universe. Are we truly alive in this iteration? Are we merely another transformation in the infinite of possibility/impossibility of God/the Universe? Does it make any difference what we think or if we even care?

If God is, there is no limit to what God may think or do or how many times or when it may change perspective and make evil good and good evil and swap the players in time and geography at random. Who can know. No human can know. Submit to not knowing.

Why would any of it matter, except as a mental exercise to keep God occupied in an otherwise infinitely unchanging solitude?

If there is only the Universe and God is a human invention to explain submission, then life is simple. Treat with others as you would have them treat with you, keep your promise, do not harm, repair your errors and mistakes, defend your neighbor's liberty as your own.

Life is probably even more simple than that. Live and let live. Hold the mysteries in your box of secrets, to examine from time to time and to wonder over them. But live while you have life. Live honorably and fruitfully . . . whatever that may mean in your particular geography and time.