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21:26 - May 02, 2002 I meant to go back and discuss Timothy's book with him today, but he didn't show up until very late. He's trying to graduate violin-making school, and sometimes he's the last one to leave; the one who has to lock the door behind him. The violin that the flutist so admiringly played comes from that class. I was frustrated, because the book, which claims to address 'some of the tough issues against religion", only addresses the one about 'if God is a loving God, there wouldn't be so much suffering yada yada yada', which I don't see as a tough issue at all. Anyone can rattle off a catch phrase like 'God works in His mysterious ways' or 'There is an inherent plan', but the only way I think of it, and have always thought of it, is: who says God is loving? (if there even is one? which, if you're me, there isn't?) He could be a vengeful God, a sociopathic God who has a twisted mind and enjoys tormenting His minions. He could be a three year old playing with Legos who one day inadvertently became our Creator. Three year olds like to smash things. One day this giant foot will descend from the sky and the Earth will be kaput, and what will the Christians say? 'God works in his mysterious ways.' What will many atheists say? 'We thought your 'God' was supposed to be loving! What do you have to say now?' The Christians will respond with 'He is! He has a plan for us, and this is it.' 'How do you know he's loving?' 'He tells us in the Bible.' 'Why do you believe what the Bible tells you?' 'It is the Word of God.' 'How do you know?' 'The Bible tells us. 'Why do you believe what the Bible tells you?' 'It is the Word of God.'...... And as it goes on in circles of this manner, there will be this tiny voice in the background going.. 'Three year old! Vengeful! The universe has a fucked up sense of humour... OUCH! (flying rock).' This will be me. No mention of God, or whether he's supposed to be loving, or whether the Bible is the word of God, because, let's face it, even though I'm having this out with Christians just because it's in context at the moment, there are masses of other religions with their own conceptions of who and what God is and what His or Her word is, and how it is manifested, and who is and is not going to heaven or hell or purgatory or will be floating peacefully at one with the universe or be reincarnated into a pigeon, and it'd be crass to assume that the universe, or 'God', even gave us any hints as to what it/he was doing. Were I the Supreme Being, I wouldn't tell anyone what my plans were; I'd defy my own laws of physics constantly just because I wouldn't remember them. Also, I'd periodically explode parts of Texas. It's in the nature of anything with our sort of brain to be inconsistent, and also to fuck shit up. Therefore, my theory is that whatever's running this place is not, technically, sentient. It knows what it's doing, on some level, not unlike how a plant knows it has sex with itself to reproduce. But not on the same level we would be aware if we had to have sex with ourselves to reproduce. 'Hey!' we'd say to each other. 'Look at this hot CHICK I nailed last night.' Then we'd gesture to our own chests proudly, indicating the hot chick. My point is, if the universe itself had a mind like we do, or is assumed by many that God does (similar at least, minus the whole fallibility deal) Newton's apple would have fallen up, temporarily, while God tried to remember which way gravity was supposed to go. All right, so he's infallible. So he can't forget. Right, Christians? Then, when Jesus came down to earth, he knew he was going to die. It was all in God's plan, right? So when he does, when he gets crucified, there's an uproar about how Jesus died for us, when it was all written in the script beforehand anyway. We have to thank Him for dying for us, for saving us, when God is up there, timeless, knowing how this is all being played out. If God wrote in the script for Jesus to die in order to save us, then if Jesus had not died, God would be proven wrong, and the world would have exploded, or something... whatever happens when God is proven wrong. Since Jesus DOES die, God is not proven wrong, and the human race is saved, hence the phrase 'he died for our sins.' However. The sins that he must die for. Sins are not meant to happen, right? If what was 'meant' to happen had happened, and we did not commit any sins for Jesus to die for, if Jesus had died anyway, he would NOT have died for our sins; like the Bible says, and the Bible cannot be wrong. If we HAD committed sins, which go against God, then God has written into fate something that works against Himself, and God is wrong, and God cannot be wrong. Jesus cannot have died for our sins without something being fallible. Being infallible is impossible. For the entire set of beliefs of any given Christian sect to be entirely true is impossible. The universe has a wicked, wicked sense of humour. I believe it enjoys itself, watching it all tick by, us all laughing and screaming and bleeding and touching and crying and smiling. On the same level we know the agony of a beetle as we crush it with the toe of our boot. On the same level a plant knows it breathes out oxygen, which we breathe in, and breathe out carbon dioxide, which the plants breathe in, and breathe out oxygen. In other words, on hardly any level at all.
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