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God’s an Asshole Too.

The war widow’s wail, the farmer’s parched famine realization, the eventual obvious conclusion: god don’t give a shit. At most, our travails might merit cocktail-time amusement for the Big Cheese. Perhaps God wagered large during some drunken Friday night god council, “Whatya bet nuclear gets ’em before the hidden asteroid I jostled?”

“Nah, I vote disease and diarrhea”, yells out another god above the din. Maybe it’s pure ego.

The Old Testament one demanded sacrificial lambs and children, muttering, “I am a jealous god.” Of what? Of men? And are there really an army of you? That’s what I was taught. Gods. Plural. Do good, and you can grow up to be god too. The Mormon mantra: as man is now, god once was; as god is now, man may become. Like I want to be an insecure ego-maniac with a blood-thirst hankering for murder, mayhem, and moronic misery.

Figure god gives us such short lifespans because it is sore afraid. Any longer, and we might actually suss out what we can truly be. But, snip, another life’s over. Some must get so close. Maybe on their deathbed, cognition finally Big Bang accelerates into revelatory white light, granting a precious few the true knowledge, a precious moment too late. We don’t know. Nobody’s telling.

Einstein famously said, “God does not play dice with the Universe.” A perfectly reasonable response to the quantum improbabilities lodged in the bowels of the Universe. Turns out Einstein was wrong. Whether or not God laid a wager on those dice remains unknown.

OK, I am rash plastering all our greatest human foibles onto God. Is that fair? The Kabbalah suggests there are several varieties of god. In particular, Ain Soph, the infinite, rules them all. Every other god exists in a subordinate relationship to Ain Soph, and in a connected but competitive relationship to all its god buddies. Too bad we got the one named jealous; but I’m sure there’s worse.

Well, god’s dead anyway. Or might as well be. Whatever. It’s clear we have to fend for ourselves.

Some look to angels to help us. Not so sure about them either. They didn’t mind helping themselves to the women of Sodom. Oh yeah, the angels help themselves. Maybe that’s the lesson, everybody got to help themselves. So what do we learn? Can’t trust god; can’t trust angels; and you certainly can’t trust man.

What’s left? DNA is a heck of a computer program. Builds horses, gnats, apes, and humans. Absolutely amazing. I think it a bit beyond our jealous god’s power. I do feel a twinge of compassion though. Clearly our god was just an asshole too.

—January 22, 2023