Dear diary,
There is no ceiling to God. God can always improve. However perfect God is, there’s always a superior perfection that eventually becomes a possibility. So, why should I speak of God as dead, or as having fallen? Why not say that God is alive and well, and precisely as we would like for him to be? The answer is that God is not living up to my expectations; in fact, he’s falling far short.
If I were to say, “God is wonderful and worthy of praise,” then, to all the living creatures and humankind, who make up God and whose acts manifest God’s will, I would be sending a message approving the status quo, basically announcing: “The state of continual warfare and oppression that the world has been enduring is a commendable achievement.” But this I disagree with. I’d much rather say the opposite: “You, God, are sick and weak for having permitted this. These results are so unbefitting of you that their existence leads me to infer that you must have expired.”
I’m simply trying to explain why churchgoers who praise God are actually promoting evil.
If you have two children, and one boy kills the other, you don’t reward the murderer and reason “It wasn’t his fault.” No, you shake your finger at him and scold him; otherwise he will surely kill again. So, if we worship God after he commits a Worldwide War, then a few years later he’ll fire up World War Two. And, each time, he’ll argue “This is the war to end all future wars: it will surely lead to lasting peace.” Can’t you see: this God is deranged. He’s addicted to bloodshed, mayhem, chaos . . .
I bet that if God ever became a father, he would terminate his child. And I bet that even that crime would not stop people from praising him – instead of saying “We admit that it was wrong for God to torture his firstborn to death,” they would intellectually twist themselves into pretzels to explain this awfulness as excellence. This is why religious writing so often sounds hypnotically convoluted (See Paul’s letters in the New Testament).
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I’m sorry to myself for steering into this rut, so habitually, of late. Contentious God-talk. I guess I’m destined to be always attempting but failing to relax my angst, in this arena. The moment I glimpse an opponent — lion or bear, hippo or croc — my instinct is to fight; I wish I could neutralize my nature, and see not the enemy but a fellow being. Remember that we all share the same fate, anyway. Learn to face with composure the beast that emerges from darkness to rip me to shreds.
I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him? (Ecclesiastes 3:18-22)
I’m imagining myself as a gladiator in the old Roman Amphitheatre. Since all tactics are futile, my aim is to refuse to fight, so as to deprive the Archons of the pleasure of watching me struggle.
My laughing reader gets the last word: “You fail in advance.”
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