Climbing out from Luxor, I quickly left the Valley of the Nile behind. From now on I’d be flying over desert except for the brief minutes over the Red Sea. Desert, desert everywhere and not a drop to drink. Except for the plastic water bottle I had with me. This desolate landscape made me wonder, 'Why did the three Semitic religions all start in these barren lands?' Is it the harshness of the conditions? Living in this hell did people need a providential God in order to survive, to not simply lie down in the burning sand and die? Did they need a God who came down to earth in a bush, or as a man, or whispering to a Prophet? People seem to need fairy tales. As Einstein said, "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends. No interpretation no matter how subtle can change this."
Do people living in the desert need Specific Providence to help them live a good life against such harsh elements? The arguments of Specific Providence and General Providence are fairly recent, in historical terms. General Providence posits God as the creator. That is, God established the Universe as it is and then the Universe operates according to Natural laws. General Providence allows for the operation of a rational Universe which follows specific identifiable laws, e.g. gravity.
Even in a Universe ruled by rational laws, not everything may be explicable to man. For instance, why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to bad people? We can follow rational scientific laws to explain most things. As an example, gravity can cause someone to fall and hurt themselves, bad, but gravity is necessary for the orderly operation of the Universe. So gravity is good even though it can have bad outcomes because it is necessary for the rational operation of the Universe. The problem we have in understanding why ‘bad’ things happen to ‘good’ people is that we are applying ethical judgments to natural processes. A flood is a natural process, not a decision made by some sentient being. God didn’t decide to send a flood. He isn’t operating the Universe; the natural laws are operating in it. It isn’t really a bad or good, it simply is. There is no one to blame or praise. Perhaps living in a hell like Arabia, it is hard to accept such an impersonal Universe.
Maybe that is why the Semitic peoples needed Specific Providence, the intervention of God into the universe. All three of the Semitic religions have Specific Providence, the intervention of God into the Creation after the fact. If I pray hard enough, God will change the operation of the Universe in answer to my supplication. It is apparent why people in harsh environments would be enthralled by this notion. The idea that some power, outside of themselves, that might make things better would have a definite appeal.
There is a problem with the idea of Specific Providence and the Enlightenment philosophers tackled this tricky subject. During much of European history, denying Specific Providence would have been a good way to find out personally about how fire operates. Getting burned at the stake might not be rational but avoiding it certainly is which is why Christianity wasn't questioned for centuries in the West, despite being a religion of nonsense and myths.
Logically, the idea of Specific Providence is flawed, as it requires God to operate against himself. What does that mean? If God established the Universe and he is omniscient and omnipotent, then he would have established the Universe as it should be and for all time. There would be no need for changes later just because someone, somewhere, ran some prayer beads through their hands. Either God created the Universe as it should be, which would require no later intervention or God the Creator was a limited being and had to enter history and ‘fix’ his mistakes. Either we have a rational Universe that can be understood, at some level, or God has created an irrational Universe that will always remain beyond our understanding because he has to keep fixing it to meet someone’s prayers. I think most of us would reject the idea of God as trickster purposely creating an irrational Universe. Logically then, that leaves General Providence as the only viable answer, and with that, a non-interventionist God. As Stephen Hawking said in his book, A Brief History of Time, "These laws, how the universe will develop with time, may have been originally decreed by God, but it appears that He has since left the universe to evolve according to the laws and does not now intervene in it."
This non-interventionist God has some interesting outcomes if you follow the reasoning it leads to. If God does not intervene into his own Creation, what do we make of religious stories of God coming down to earth? They must be fables. God couldn’t have written the Bible, or dictated the Koran because he stays outside his creation. These stories of God coming to Earth are nothing more than superstition to help an ignorant desert populous cope with the unknowable quality of General Providence, for instance the rational laws of nature sometimes create floods. Whether it is praying to the Gods of the Nile for rain, or reciting a rosary it is man's striving to come to terms with the unknowable. Looking out at the barren landscape of the Arabian Peninsula, I could see why people, on the edge of starvation in most times, would need to create a personal God. Of course, the problem is that it isn’t rational and can't be true. But how many of man’s religions are rational?
It was the advances of Science in the Eighteenth Century that allowed man to break free of superstition. The rational world of Newton gave men the hope that the formerly unknowable General Providence could someday be understood. This is why the Eighteenth century, the Age of Enlightenment, was the century of Deists. The man, who was the Enlightenment, was Voltaire. For all he accomplished in his life, perhaps the most significant thing he did was change the mind of Europe on toleration, the idea that every man has the right to his beliefs.
People forget that Christian Europe was as intolerant as modern mid-eastern Muslims. It was a sin, an evil, to be tolerant. What would you do to save a neighbor from a burning building? Should you not do even more to save him from eternal burning? St. Aquinas said a crime against a king brought death. Should not a crime against the eternal king bring the same punishment? For a millennium, toleration was considered an evil. It was one man, following Pierre Bayle who proved Christian fables were just that in his encyclopedia, who spent his life writing about the evils of intolerance and the positive good of toleration that changed those words for all of the thinking men of Europe. One man! The Muslims simply haven’t had their Voltaire. But are they wrong? Our forefathers would have thought them right to be intolerant. Then they would have burned them for being heretics. I looked out from above the birthplace of religions and saw the endless Hell of burning sand and rocks stretched as far as my eye could see.
Still over that vast expanse of hell I thought all of this very rational tête-à-tête with myself was nice but what if you live in that hell down below. I mean, this is obviously a problem for the Muslims. The Quran promises them the best of everything if they believe in Allah. Yet, it doesn’t take an Einstein to realize they got the leftovers when ‘God’ passed out the nice places to live. That has got to be a problem.
But down below is the land of God. Right? The Jews, Christians and Muslims all say so. Really. Why do people believe such obvious tripe? The Bible is so full of fiction and fabrication that if it wasn’t ‘Holy’ we’d laugh at the people incredulous enough to believe it. Aesop’s fables are more likely to be true. How are talking foxes any different than talking bushes? And yet, people do believe it.
That’s when the Jesuit motto came to mind, ‘Give us the children till they are seven and you can have them the rest of their lives.’ Well. The Jesuits certainly know how to indoctrinate kids. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic. Even those who rebel can’t fully escape their early indoctrination. They can’t not be Catholic; they can only resist being Catholic.
Maybe that is the secret of religion; it has to be inculcated in the unformed mind, the uncritical mind, the child’s mind to keep its hold despite the irrationality of religions. Once that irrationality is there, it can’t be easily removed later in life. Kids grow up believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Jesus. They are all the same. Just at some point, and to the great disappointment of the children, they are told two of those aren’t real. No one ever tells them that they are all fables. It is only this indoctrination of an uncritical mind that allows nonsensical religions to maintain their hold over man’s mind. Later rationality goes over the top of all that irrational belief, and like any subconscious impulse, it remains buried and powerful, unalterable by the rational surface mind.
This would also be true in explaining how new religions gain followers? Most ‘new’ religions are in fact expansions or offshoots of old religions. They don't need to break this indoctrination; they can exploit it. They aren’t ‘new’ until they have a history and have separated themselves from the old. Christians and Muslims both trace back to their Jewish roots. Buddhism was a branch of Hinduism. Joseph Smith was visited by an angel who told him Jesus came to America after his resurrection and so this new religion was actually the Christianity these rustics all knew but in wolves clothing. Even the growth of Christianity in ‘pagan’ Rome makes sense. Hell, the Romans accepted every new God they ran across. The more the merrier, so accepting a new God wouldn’t contradict that early training. All ‘new’ religions need to tap into that reservoir of belief in the subconscious to grow. Maybe I am on to something.
I had crossed Saudi Arabia and could see the pale blue of the Persian Gulf ahead, called by Arabs the Arabian Gulf. Dubai is one of the seven United Arab Emirates, oil rich sheikdoms that joined together to give the tiny states more clout. Unlike most other Arab states, the UAE has a pro Western leaning, at least when it comes to getting tourist dollars. Europeans take shopping trips to the UAE, flying down and buying duty free items that are heavily taxed in their home countries. Of course, anywhere there is a thriving tourist industry, there is a thriving sex industry. In Dubai, as in many places, the sex is imported. I wondered why these seven states were so different than the surrounding Arab countries.
I called into the airport control and asked for landing instructions. I think they were somewhat amused when I had to explain what sort of plane the F4U-4 was. I imagined a few controllers grabbing glasses and looking out to see what kind of aircraft this was. They had me circle out over the desert, barren and lifeless, and then approach heading towards the sea. These commercial runways are so wide and long, that I feel like the plane is going to get lost on them. With flaps at 30 degrees I stopped without brakes in a few hundred feet on this two mile long strip of concrete. I opened the canopy and a blast of heat enveloped me. ‘Holy shit,’ I thought as sweat broke on my face and hands.
After parking the plane and arranging for fuel and oil, I caught a taxi to the hotel. Taxi drivers everywhere are the people to ask when you want to know where the girls are. He recommended a couple of clubs and said I could find professionals at my hotel. The Russian women would be at the hotel bar, available for entertainment. That’s right, Russian. Dubai has used the enormous oil wealth to import all of the workers for their entertainment industry. If you’ve seen Arab women you know why they import others for sex. There are seven foreign workers for every native in Dubai. It is a very cosmopolitan place, as long as you stay in the tourist areas.
The hotel was modern, spacious and the staff was friendly. I was impressed. I took a shower and lay on the bed to relax. I figured I was in for a late night so I set the alarm clock and took a nap.
When the alarm went off, I headed down and grabbed a bite to eat. The hotel had an ‘Arab’ bar. Even this early in the evening, it was full. It had a strange assortment of westerners, Asians, and Arab men, but no Arab women. The Arab men all were dressed in Western style. They were escaping the strictures of Islam for a wild night on the town. Here, alcohol was served by the Filipino bartenders and the Thai waitresses.
The club was filled with beautiful women, many blondes from the Ukraine and western Russia. I wasn’t exactly interested in a professional encounter; on the other hand, there were a lot of drop dead good looking women. Sometimes, sex for hire is cheaper than ‘free’ sex and a lot quicker. When it comes to dating, this city was a mini United Nations. Iranians dating Brits, Filipinos dating Brazilians, Canadians dating Palestinians. Everyone was having fun trying to avoid the insanity of the region.
Unfortunately, women in Dubai are like women the world over; the more a guy’s pocket jingles, the better looking the women he attracts. Apparently, the cheapest dates are the Filipino housekeepers. Also according to my guidebook, the blonde beautiful Russians are the most expensive and the Lebanese women are the highest maintenance. Why Lebanese?
The Arab band broke into a tune, if you could call it that, as the lights went up. A stunning Lebanese woman came out, everything in the middle moving like she was in a paint shaker. At one point, she took a stick and set it on top of her breasts, where it stayed. She had incredible muscle control. I was fantasizing about what other kind of muscle control she might have when I heard a voice over my shoulder, “Are you alone?”
I turned my head to see an attractive girl, brunette and hazel eyed, and not looking like a professional. “Yes. Would you care to join me?” I asked.
She slid in next to me and held out her hand, “Cecily.”
I took her hand, “Mike.”
Just so you get the picture, the conversations were held by putting your mouth right next to the other person’s ear and shouting. I gestured to the waiter to bring food. Typically, for an Arab restaurant, he brought an assortment of small plates, all to be eaten with the hand. We ate, smiling at each other, and watched the dancer. After about twenty minutes, she took a well earned break.
“What are you doing in Dubai?” she asked.
I told her about the trip so far and a little about what I planned for the rest of the journey. “And you?”
“I’m here on holiday,” she answered. Seeing the question in my face she explained. “I’m here with a girlfriend; shopping, sunbathing, and dating.” Her accent was British.
“Your friend?” I asked.
“She found a rather dashing Irani fellow. I think they went out to a big bash on the island, nude swimming and so forth,” she said nonchalantly.
It all clicked; a couple of Brit girls down here for a wild vacation. Things were looking up. We chatted about her job and what she liked in Dubai as we ate. Then the band struck up again and the Lebanese dancer was back. Once again I was amazed watching how her body moved.
Cecily leaned over and yelled in my ear, “Like her do you?”
“I am amazed how she can move like that,” I said.
“Not that difficult really,” she said. I raised my eyebrow. “Don’t believe me?” she asked. I shook my head. “Come on then,” she said standing.
I settled the bill and followed her out. As we crossed the main room, she pointed to the bar. “Get a bottle of bubbly, French, and two glasses.” She waited as I got a bottle of Maison Duetz and two glasses. She took my arm and led me to the elevators. I pressed the button for my floor. Cecily looked supremely confident.
Once in my room, she said, “Pour us two glasses and find some Arab music on the radio,” she said as she disappeared into the bath. I popped the cork on the Champagne and poured two glasses, then turned on the radio. The third station had the same wailing music as had been played downstairs.
Cecily came out of the bath in nothing but a thong and a bra. Her hips jiggled, not as fast as the girl in the bar, but not terrible either. I handed her one glass as she danced up to me. Without missing a beat, she took a sip and danced around me. I watched her hips move, simulating furious sex, and quickly grew aroused. It was arousing but also a bit daunting to think of trying to keep up with a girl who could move her hips like that.
Cecily finished off her champagne and dropped onto the couch next to me. She held up her empty glass which I refilled. “Well?” she asked.
“You have convinced me,” I said. “I am your servant.”
She laughed as she downed her champagne, then held out the glass for more. Her eyes held mine; promising maybe, challenging maybe. I quickly filled it again. She took a sip, then she took me by the hand leading me to the bed.
Taking my glass, she set both down then flowed into my arms. Who was I to argue? We kissed, then kissed some more, her tongue lashing into my mouth, dancing about, encouraging me, inflaming me. Her passion flowed from her like an aura of sexuality igniting the passionate fire in my loins.
Clothing littered the floor by the bed. Hot skin pressed against skin. We fell into the bed, enveloped by the soft linens. Cecily fell between my legs, taking my staff and encircling it with her lips. She suckled, her lips and tongue milking it, bringing a moan of pleasure from deep inside me.
I pulled her around until her pussy was right above me. I dove in licking and sucking her ripe pussy like a starving man. She kept up, her head bobbing over my shaft. But the sensations caught up with her, her head falling to the side as it became too much for her. I pushed her over onto her back, my face still buried in her pussy.
I thrust a finger deep into her steaming opening, curling the finger over her hard spot. Cecily’s hips started bouncing in time with the curling finger in her pussy, fucking up and down as it penetrated her. My lips and tongue continued attacking her clitoris, sucking, teasing, then fucking her with my mouth. Her breath started coming in rasping breaths as she moaned and grunted, her hips bouncing and her belly hunching up, trying to draw the ultimate pleasure from my touch.
It didn’t take long. A red blush grew over her pale white skin. Her hands grabbed at the sheet, then her body went stiff, her hips hunched up off the bed as I felt her pussy grasping at my finger, pulsing around it as she was flooded with her arousal. I slowed my attack on her letting her come down from the pinnacle she had achieved, until she collapsed back onto the bed. I lifted my head, happy that I could please her. My finger slid from her steaming opening.
Her eyes opened. “Bloody hell,” she said in her cute British accent.
Smiling, I moved up over her. Her eyes were, lust lidded, but full of satisfied lust as well. She pulled me down into a searing kiss. My cock had pressed against her pussy when she pulled me down and she felt it. Her hips started moving, pressing against the hard pole. It found her opening and she hunched up, the tip entering her. I felt the heat and slick wetness of her pussy on my cock which caused me, almost without thought, to lurch forward, burying my shaft deep inside Cecily. She sighed, “Oh yes, you Yank bastard. Oh, that feels so good…”
Almost of their own volition, my hips began rising and plunging back down, but slowly. This was to be a dance of controlled lust. I looked at my newly found British babe, her eyes locked with mine as I began making love to her. I wanted her to feel that. This wasn’t just a quick poke in Dubai. I wanted her to remember this for a long time. Our eyes stayed locked together as we moved like one, bodies merging together, then parting, only to join as one again.
Our lovemaking was slow and steady, rising higher and higher until the pressure built, and could no longer be contained in a slow march. The pace quickened, our bodies meeting faster and faster. So much erotic energy had built during our long slow lovemaking that the crest built quickly, coming on and enveloping us. I felt the surge from my loins, then the contractions as I poured my cum into Cecily. She moaned and crested her own orgasm, bucking and moaning under me, until we both were spent and fell together onto the bed, breathing hard and holding each other tightly.
“Bloody hell,” she said again. “That was a right good tumble.” She smiled. “Glad I picked you up.”
“Me too,” I said.
We fell asleep twined together.
I woke early to find lovely Cecily still in my bed. I began to play with her breasts. She moaned a little as she woke. Her eyes opened as I tweaked her nipple. “Quit that or you’ll be sorry,” she said.
I tweaked her other nipple. “Oh yeah.”
“Yes,” she said as she rolled over me. My cock was hard and as she mounted me it snuggled up against her pussy. She looked surprised for a moment, then her eyes narrowed. She began rocking on me and I felt her quickly grow wet and hot. On one rock, she lifted just a bit, then pushed back plunging down over my hard rod.
I had never met a British cowgirl before, but Cecily rode me like she had been raised bucking broncos. This was the furious fuck we didn’t have the night before. She threw her head back, moaning and cumming as I spewed up into her clasping pussy.
“There,” she said. “Sorry now?”
“Not at all,” I said smiling. She started rocking again but unfortunately, my cock was now soft and slipped from her. “Oops.”
She looked a bit frustrated, then smiled. “Well, two good tumbles ought to make a girl happy. Makes the trip worthwhile.”
I laughed, “Sure does.” I glanced at the clock and saw it was time for me to go. I looked back to Cecily and she saw it in my face.
“Thrown over, am I? Just like a man, screw and run.” She patted my cheek then kissed me a solid kiss. “Off to see the world.” She rolled off and started to stand.
“Cecily…” I started to say.
“No, you don’t need to apologize. I knew last night what you were about, flying round the world. I got what I wanted too, you know,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.
I bounced out of bed and gave her a hug, “Thank you.”
She slapped my butt, “Go get a shower.”
The last I saw her she was watching me head into the bath, a delicious smile on her face. She was gone when I got out of the shower. I do love those luscious British babes with their lusty dispositions, so different from the inhibited American.
Return to Around the World homepage
Copyright Rod O'Steele © 2008, 2012