On the Road to Damascus
On the road to Damascus the Pharisee Saul of Tarsus
was blinded by the light of religious conversion
knocked to the ground, burned by a fireball
brighter than the Sun, and heard the voice of Jesus
asking him, “Saul, why dost thou persecute me?”
Now a college friend has sent me a story from
the “New Scientist” that explains the Bible story as
nothing more than an exploding meteor, and so the
meteoric rise of Christianity after Paul joined the team
is mere misunderstanding of natural phenomena
thus disproving Christianity and the civilization based on it.
I have read this theory before, and I am also aware that the
Star of Bethlehem was observed, recorded, and charted by
Chinese astronomers, later backtracked by computers and
discovered by telescopes to be the nebulous remains of a
Supernova that exploded, brighter than the moon by night
visible by day, guiding the Magi to that humble stable.
Sadly, my friend despises Jews and dislikes Christians
growing up without religion or spiritual guidance
child of divorce and an abusive father.
He found a welcoming home in Islam, which he considers
superior, even with their ritual involving the black rock in the
Ka’aba, itself a meteoric relic associated with the earlier
pagan moon-worshipping religion that predated Muhammad.
For Saul to go from the worst enemy and persecutor of
Christians to their most ardent and successful champion and
supporter involves a little more than just change in direction
misapprehension of natural phenomena, begging the question
“Who created the sun, moon, stars, meteors in the first place?”
Are we not all of us, whether we call it
Route 666, Hwy 61, or the Information Superhighway
also on the road to Damascus
waiting for the scales to fall from our eyes
when we finally see the light?
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