Perhaps you've heard George Frederick Handel's famous oratorio, Messiah.  Countless church choirs and various secular choruses present it during the Christmas and Easter seasons.  It is loved the world over.  While some like it for its melodies alone, others appreciate its religious sentiments, too.
     Less likely, however, is that you've heard of Handel's "Jupiter" aria.  This aria appears in Handel's Semele, a musical drama in three parts.  Who's Semele?  She is the god Dionysus's earthly mother by Zeus (or to use the Roman word for the chief god of the Greco-Roman pantheon, Jupiter).  Now most of us would not wish to write an aria glorifying a philanderer like Zeus, and that was not Handel's intent, either.  The aria of Jupiter rather serves to signify the way in which a god like Jupiter (Zeus) can, because of his immensely superior power over human beings, have his way in all earthly affairs, and the havoc this often causes.
     On balance, if we believe in a god, most of us would prefer for this god to be morally upright.  We would want this god to refrain from engaging in behavior which we find distasteful.  But this begs the larger question:  how does a god decide what is moral?  And how do we know whether it is indeed moral?
     When we consider Zeus's predilection for earthly women, we wonder about this even more.  That is, which came first:  the chicken or the egg?  Was God moral before we?  Or do we project our morals upon God?
     It's vexing.  Either way, we're only talking to ourselves.  Without genuine transcendence, however, we're spinning our wheels.  When therefore next you listen to Semele, consider how by reflecting our personal foibles in his behavior, Zeus/Jupiter aptly serves to undercut any thought that we can, on our own, decide what is true.

     By the way, I'll be traveling a bit.  See you late next week!