We picture God puff-angry on a fluffy cloud, and firing thuderbolds every time you or I seek to covet our neighbour’s ass:
‘The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying ... It does not make much sense to pray to the Law of Gravity.’ Carl Sagan
For this job interview of God, planet Earth will need declare itself an Equal Opportunities employer, open to galactic fascist faces, from your Cardassian starship captain, down to, say — well, for fairness, we’ll ask the Law of Gravity to wear formal dress-suit and tie.
‘Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they find God wherever they look for him. One hears it said that ‘God is the ultimate’ or ‘God is our better nature’ or ‘God is the universe’. Of course, like any other word, the word ‘God’ can be given any meaning we like. If you want to say that ‘God is energy’, then you can find God in a lump of coal.’ Steven Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory
Shouldn’t God owe us a duty of care (English law standard)? Be discernible? Has God so little regard for the probity of evidence? Do we really hold with God being a third-rate magician, fond of planting dinosaur bones in the ground? Then the joke has gone too far.
‘But should we believe in such things if it’s at the expense of everything that corresponds with scientific method, with reason?’ Matthew Alper, The God Part of the Brain
Perhaps the reader fancies an orgy of Gods. Which sounds a bit saucy. But you and I are not normally invited to those sort of parties. The kinky reader bewares the naked danger of being uncloseted — a pantheist. The temptation of the Hebrew Bible with its gods plural must be tempered with the straight monogamy of, ‘O Lord, there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears.’ I Chronicles 17:20
You don’t find many Baalists these days. Storm-chasers for Zeus now a slow drizzle. Never mind, we’ve been blessed with the Jehovah Witnesses to take the piss from so we shouldn’t complain.
‘It would be no different if Bush were to summon up Jupiter and the Palace Athena. Whatever happened to those gods anyway? Where are the people to believe in them now? How quaint they seem and yet how seriously they were held to be, to exist.’ Ian McEwan, interview Richard Dawkins’
Perhaps the reader fancies a God who, having kick-started the universe party, kicks back in her favourite armchair and rolls the Big One rather than answer prayers, count sins or ruin the party with a few cheap tricks. Yours is a chilled God who would rather hang about the bookmaker’s than run the universe. And with good reason. Your God is probably ashamed of her creation after the advent of the Spice Girls, and if you press her, your God will deny creating the universe on the grounds of diminished responsibility. If you hold with a half-hearted God who wouldn’t be seen dead around planet Earth — you are a deist. Which sounds boring and a bit like a Catholic S&M party with whips and chains, but such parties should be avoided for a lack of heavenly herbs, and with lashings of nuns and Nazareno and hellish habits.
If the reader fancies a God who does the business — a busy-body — subordinates sins — pruriently espies us through the mean end of a telescope — furiously frowns over human affairs — prefers hymn and tambourine — tampers the temporal time-lines — terrible temperament trailing hell-fire — you are a theist.
But a personal God presents prodigious problems that overshadow, say, the paradoxes put forward by passing back in Time.
Your personal God soaks the praise for our every drop of good fortune; and your personal God escapes blame-free the deluge of bad fortune that drenches our lives with devilish determination.
‘If it turns out that there is a God, I don’t think that he’s evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he’s an underachiever.’ Woody Allen
Why would a rational God give a rat’s arse about whether we believe in her? Why would God set Faith as the deciding factor in winning her favour?
‘The most preposterous notion that homosapiens has ever dreamed up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history.’ Robert A Heinlein, Time Enough For Love
For example, what on Earth are blessings? This quirk of Mormonism never fails to tickle my cognitive-dissonance funny-bone. Why would I seek an advantage over my neighbour? Why would I be so solipsistic to believe God is willing to shower me a golden show of blessings? Which blessings, and how do I measure the success of the appeal?
Funny definition of a God. If the payment of tithing is rewarded with blessings, is there a sliding scale of reward?
The debasement of begging for blessings is an example of the trouble you attract with a belief in a personal God. ‘God speaks through me,’ prophesied a monosyllabic George W Bush, finger on the button.
‘The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.’ Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
Put the hairdryer down, Mr President, and step away from the desk.
‘Who says that I am not under the special protection of God?’ claimed Adolf Hitler. (‘Oh no you’re fucking not!’ two-fingered God from her favourite rocking chair, and returning to the racing columns of The Sporting Life.)
The living fear of being dumped in Hell and having your backside used as a toast-rack is not sufficient reason to worship a fascist intergalactic empire-builder.
‘Simply put, they want a human God to eliminate all risk from their life. Pat them on the head, kiss their bruises, put a chicken on every dinner table, clothe their bodies, tuck them into bed at night, and tell them that everything will be all right when they wake up in the morning. This public demand is incredible.’ Bill Cooper, Behold a Pale Horse
Solidarity is the highest lesson we struggle to learn as we trip our weary way to a meal with the worms. And Solidarity wins Pascal’s wager that we may as well believe in God because we have nothing to lose.
The late Christopher Hitchens lamented hymn-like God’s battle-plan: ‘Some design. Some father. Some caring God. Some designing supervisor.’ Collision: debate Christopher Hitchens v Douglas Wilson, Youtube