Dear diary,
Alright, so, let me get this straight. God created the world. All the animals were good, and the first two humans were good; and they lived with God in his garden. Then God said: “You can eat from every tree except for this one.” And when the humans ate from the forbidden tree, God kicked them out of the garden. So, the humans had to learn to survive elsewhere. The first two humans bore children in exile, and those children bore children. Soon the earth was populated by multitudes of humans. God then caused water to flood the earth, killing all life, except one pair from each animal species, and one family of humans. The animals and humans then began to bear young, and those young bore young, just like before, until there were multitudes populating the earth again. Now, out of all these multitudes, yet again God chose to give extra care to one man’s family. But despite his favoritism, God allowed this man’s family to end up moving to, and eventually being oppressed by, that era’s empire. Once the oppression reached a maximum level, God intervened to rescue his chosen group from the empire. The favored family had now multiplied to the size of a nation. God led them out of the empire and into his residence. God no longer lived in the garden from the beginning; he now was staying on a hill in the wilderness. The favored nation remained with God for a while at his hill; then God took them wandering around the wilderness. Finally, God told this favored nation that he shall cause them to reside in the fertile lands nearby. These lands were already inhabited by other nations. The favored nation then fought and settled various places. Some time later, a new empire arose and conquered the favored nation, taking them captive. A remnant of the favored nation eventually returned to resettle a small part of their former land; but most of the favored nation remained in captivity, in the new empire.
And that’s where the story stops; God just sort of fades away, although people still fight about him.
If you were a member of that favored nation, would you . . .
If you were a member of one of the other nations, what story would you tell about your . . .
Is there a moral? Is the story finished, or is it currently undergoing an intermission, or was there never really a story to begin with?
Is God for or against empire? Some believe that when a man acquires riches, it means that God has blessed that man. An empire is a wealthy nation: does this wealth indicate God’s favor? If not, then how can one tell if one’s riches are God-given or God-defiant?
When God favors you, you end up enslaved. When God is against you, you enjoy great wealth and power, and you get to enslave God’s favored nation. Your power subsists for lengthy spans of time, while God slowly develops a plan to bring you down. And God’s plans never fully play out: God’s aims are never quite seen through to the end: there is never a satisfying conclusion to God’s great claims. The favored nation never enjoys a moment when it can say “Now we have officially taken root in the land that God promised us.” Instead, while the favored nation is working on settling the final portions of this Promised Land, some neighboring nation breaks them up, and the current empire drags them away.
People from the favored nation wonder what the cause of their downfall was. Many of their priests say: “Our favored nation got defeated because we displeased God; God was displeased when we worshiped him by other names and titles than those names and titles that our own priestly sect approves; and God was angered when he saw his favored nation performing rituals that our own priestly sect did not authorize. Our favored nation would never have been taken into captivity, if the population had only worshiped God in the ways that our own priestly sect advises.”
Now consider the people from those nations that were not originally favored by this God. Some of these previously unfavored people have come to believe that that same God changed his mind and presently favors new groups. Or they argue that this God never intended to favor only one ethnicity, but that he always meant to favor whoever would listen to him and believe his message and follow his ways. (What is this God’s message? What are his ways? What has he said? – And who can anyone trust to answer these questions?)
So now we have the current era’s empire boasting of having procured this God’s favor. And it’s hard to argue against this idea, because if God does not favor the present empire, then why does he permit it to be so rich and powerful? Will God rescue the empire’s workforce ever again? Or has God switched teams: is he now on the side of the masters, against the slaves? Can God lie? What would happen if God tried to lie to us, would his conscience give him a little 9-volt shock?
And what exactly is God’s name? What is his nature and character? Some believe that this God who plays favorites had a son. Some say the son and the father are the same person. Others believe that the father is the enemy and his son is the savior. Yet others say that only the original God is worthy of worship, and the rumor that he fathered a son is blasphemous. Some praise the mother of this God more than the God himself or the couple’s son. A few believe only in the ghost of this God.
Yahweh is a proper name. Jesus is a proper name. Lord is a title. Yahweh is called Lord. People call Jesus Lord. But Christians give me strange reactions when I ask them “Is Yahweh Jesus?” (I should have defined that term “Christian” very carefully before employing it here. Please forgive this. And, by the way, the word Baal means Lord, as well.)
Why is it troublesome to say that Jesus is Yahweh? Because Christians are uneasy about Yahweh’s Law; the Christian argument is that Jesus died to free believers from Yahweh’s Law; so, if Jesus is Yahweh, then we have the Law being established by Jesus on Mount Sinai, and then later we have the same Jesus dying on the cross to save people from the power of his own Law: it makes one ask: “Why not just abstain from establishing the Law, and simply teach the beatitudes in the first place? Deliver your ‘Sermon on the Mount’ straight from Sinai.” So, it’s easier to believe in Jesus if you don’t know much about Yahweh.
But does anyone truly care about any of this? I think that people just believe in whatever helps get them through their day. And what’s wrong with that? I’m wondering now: Why is each day so difficult to get through? There have been so many days that have passed, since the invention of the world: why haven’t we figured out how to make days more easily passable? Why does each day contain a moat filled with alligators? Why do sinister agents creep around in the shadows, following us everywhere we go? How come someone is always shooting bullets at the place where we are hiding?
I wish that one could exit the wheel of existence by simply refusing to procreate. Instead, one is dragged back and forced to live here again, no matter what one has done. (Is that the truth?) In fact, simply because I dreamt up this diary entry, I think I should be released from the nightmare of rebirth. But it doesn’t work like that. (Unless it does.)
The rules are: if you father five children, you must be reincarnated five times. So, at some point in my past existences, I racked up a high score of offspring; therefore, I must endure many childless existences, to offset these indiscretions. I probably have thousands of lives left; all during the worst times in history, too. That’s just my luck.
So, what will happen is that, when I die, I’ll find myself thrown back into the world in an even worse situation than the life that I just lived. I’ll be forced to feel extreme hot and extreme cold, all sorts of pain, hunger, humiliation. When still an infant, the doctors will give me countless injections; they’ll probably install a computer chip in my soul. And each new set of parents will teach me Christianity all over again, and I’ll always believe it; then, halfway through my life, I’ll figure out that this religion is a sham, but at that point, the truth will do me no good: it will come too late to set me free.
Shall God be aware of this? Does God ever tire of watching the same old story? (Maybe, to God, every story is new: “I’ve never seen anyone descend into misery quite like that,” God probably says.)
I wish there truly were a God, and I wish that he would desire for all his creatures to live a good life. But even if there is a God who exists somewhere, we humans are probably more like insects to him than friends or even house-pets. When I saw a big black spider in the bathroom this morning, my instinct was to crush him under my shoe; and then, far from feeling remorse about this murder, I was only annoyed that his guts left such a smear upon the floor tiles. That will be the scene, if I meet God. God will be horrified at Bryan. “How did this get into paradise?”
But I will not be squished so easily. I will dash about and skulk in the shadows, and set booby traps for the angels, and toss rocks at God. And, again, I’ll feel no remorse when I look around at the aftermath of the battle, and see that eternity’s crystal streams have become rivers of blood, because God and all his armies are now dead corpses; I’ll only be irked that I now need to begin studying classical economics, so that I can implement a system to govern heaven compassionately this time.
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