part 4

C’mon Russ, pile in with Paul and the others.

You know what it means. Look, I’m overdue for an attempt, you’re just asking for popcorn head.

I know what I said but I don’t think . .

Ah, fuck it, climb in. Anyone as stupid as you deserves to die. Besides, I can use the company.

Hang on. I guess we’re ready Hakiz.

Hey Paul! Russ . . Yeah . . Tell Kagame Russ would rather die than eat any more of his cooking! . .

Alright . . Ok, you too!

Alright, too late to bail out.

I don’t give a shit. Russ, you caught me on just the right day. Besides, I’m going to smash that thing with a rock when we get back.

Fuck you, you’re risking your life for fame and fortune. But today I don’t care. Russ, I guarantee you’re gonna get your money’s worth.

That’s different, he’s just crazy. Jest plumb crazy. Hakiz, tell Russ you’re crazy!

Ha ha! No shit, Hakiz, you are indeed a brave man. And crazy. You see, Hakiz will not leave my side. Hakiz thinks I am the prophet of the Avatar. Don’t you Hakiz?

See that? He believes with all his heart but he won’t admit it because he knows I send believers away. But I will not send Hakiz away, because he is a brave man. And because Hakiz has suffered much.

Shall I tell him Hakiz?

I don’t like to remind him but he says he carries the pain with him always and I can’t hurt him further if I speak of it.

Hakiz was once a Hutu. He had a beautiful wife and son. The men of his village came to conscript him to kill Tsusis. He resisted. Why? He demanded. They have done nothing to me. They threatened to kill him, so he and his son went with them to save his family. His two brothers went for the same reason. On the way he deliberately dropped his machete in some bushes. They attacked a Tsusi village but when the slaughter began he was sickened by what he saw. He tried to get his son and his brothers to come away. They killed no one but wouldn’t leave because they were afraid they would be killed by their own villagers. At that moment the Avatar appeared and fried the Hutu attackers, including his son and his brothers. He was spared because he wasn’t holding a weapon. When he returned to his village he found his wife had committed suicide. Word had come to her that the Blue Man had killed all the Hutus and she believed her husband and son were dead. Now Hakiz is no longer a Hutu, he serves only the Avatar.

Hakiz fears nothing. He lives in Hell. He is the driver of the prophet of the Avatar and he wishes to die by my side. Is this not true Hakiz?

Yes, I am only a man. Very good. But you drive for me nonetheless.

So I will not. And perhaps today you will get your wish. Hakiz, do you know of American indians?

When europeans first came to America, there were people already living there. The first europeans were stupid and thought they were in India so they called these people indians. The europeans killed most of them and took their land. In one of the last battles the indians secured a great victory. Before the battle an indian named Low Dog said to his warriors, Today is a Good Day to Die.

Yes, a magnificent day. But Low Dog didn’t die in battle. Neither will I die today.

But Russ doesn’t want to die. Right Russ?

I don’t know, but you better take advantage of it.

Shit, I don’t care, anything. It’s a long drive.

You’re not gonna give up on that are you?

I know, I know, I just don’t think it needs much explaining. I get exposed to wholesale murder on a routine basis. It’s horrifying. I see the dead and meet the living, the survivors, the families. There are thousands of others out there just like Hakiz and my head is filled with their faces. I’m submerged in a sea of suffering and death and sometimes I have to forget about what surrounds me and just float to the surface to feel the sun on my face. It doesn’t change anything. The Avatar continues to butcher people. The world continues to cheer him on.

Exactly. And it’s not just that they are, it’s why they are. It’s insane. People want to kill me because they think the Avatar is Satan and I’m his demon advocate. Ok, I can understand that. But people want to kill me because they think the Avatar is God. They think I don’t deserve to be the chosen one and want to kill me for my sacrilege even though they think I’m favored by their new deity. Does that make any sense? People want to kill me for half a dozen other cockamamie reasons.

Nine, you know that. What, you think you missed one the last two days? Maybe while you were in the can or something?

Well, you’d think that but some of them clearly still do. You know, I think there are actually three motives at work here. Take the first group. This was a classic assassination attempt, basically a drive-by. They expected to succeed, to kill me and escape. They sure as hell didn’t count on Big Blue. Once the word got out about me and my shadow, you’d think things would change, but not entirely, I still get attempts where some idiot thinks he can beat the odds. I assume they’re aware of some risk, but the plan is obviously to get to me and get away. Maybe they didn’t get the memo or maybe they have some inflated sense of their own resourcefulness, but they clearly think they have a shot to drop me and live to tell about it. Then you have the ones who know they’re going to die. All the details of the operation admit to this. But I think there are really two categories here. Some of them must think they have a chance to take me out first. I don’t know, maybe they figure if enough of them try, somebody is bound to pull it off. The point is, they’re sacrificing themselves to accomplish something outside themselves. Right? God, country, sect, somehow they believe they’re serving some greater good. God’s hit men, whatever. They’re sick, but their hearts in the right place, see what I mean? But some of them are altogether different. I really think some of these nuts are just whacked out social climbers.

No, no, hear me out. I’m convinced there are purely selfish motives for some of these attacks. I think there are people whose souls are so twisted and broken that they’re willing to . . strike that, anxious, anxious to die, just for the reward. They buy into an afterlife with a god who showers gold and virgins on killers who slaughter innocent women and children. They figure he’ll reward anyone who sacrifices his life in the attempt, so what difference does it make if they succeed or not? To die a glorious, public death at the hand of the Avatar during a hopeless but noble attempt to do God’s will is a sure ticket to eternal life as a big shot. Not to mention getting your picture on TV all over the world.

You never know . .

Well, you’ll get your chance, they keep trying.

Go for it.

Too personal.

I lied.

Look, it was totally random. There’s nothing, nothing in my background that would even begin to warrant that kind of consideration. It has to be that I was first. I was the first, and as far as I know, the only human he’s ever made eye contact with. I think it must have imprinted on him somehow, you know what I mean? He processed me as some kind of archetype or something and for some reason he’s programmed to preserve that. But it could have been anyone.

I know. It’s insane. But it doesn’t surprise me anymore, people are stupid.

You heard me. People . . are . . stupid.

Oh, come on . .

Wait a minute. You’re not listening, you’re jumping to conclusions about what you think I’m trying to accomplish by saying that. You’re trying to assess my motives, you’re trying to decide if I’m serious or not and what comment that might make on my character. Let’s just look at the statement. I didn’t say some people are stupid or even most people are stupid I just said people are stupid. Now, is that a true statement or not?

No, no, this is a binary option.

I’m not asking for insights into absolute truth. Look inside your head. Whether you like it or not there’s a part of you at your core that mostly agrees or mostly disagrees.

Fuck you Russ, why are you playing head games with yourself? I know for a fact that you agree. It’s a conclusion you came to automatically long ago and has been reinforced all your life, admit it.

You can do better than that.

There you go. That wasn’t so bad, was it? And you’re on the record, I can have fun with this later.

Hey, the truth shall make you free.

Set you free, something like that.

I don’t care. Pick one, they mean the same thing. I was trying to make a joke, not supply a citation.

Listen, you’re a smarter than average guy. That makes most people stupider than you by definition.

You don’t have to. But the price of intelligence is still having to live in a world filled with people stupider than you.

What the hell, they don’t pay you enough anyway. Besides, I’m going to make you rich. We’ve become partners in this venture by the way.

Russ, what do you think this interview is going to be worth?

Oh, we’ll do better than that. I’ve turned down five times that much.

Oh, man, they didn’t fill you in. Look, here’s the deal that brought you here. Any footage you take that doesn’t include me belongs to NBC. Anything with me in it belongs to me. I’m free to do anything I like with it. Anything. I don’t even have to give them a cut, just credit. Besides, at this point it doesn’t matter anyway, everything has changed since DIA. I can make my own rules and change them anytime I want.

Exactly. And today, you’re the chosen one of the chosen one. How’s that feel?

No shit. And you’ll get laid like you never dreamed possible.

Not really. There’s an army of ‘em willing to take the same risk you are, but the prospect of interruptus Avatarus doesn’t exactly fuel my enthusiasm.

Yeah, sooner or later. I just have to agree to more extensive security so all that shit happens at a distance. No need to invoke the Hammer.

Yeah, the Hammer of fucking God. You know, when we first heard that, John Ducept made up lyrics to that old Pete Seeger song. If I had a haaamer I’d hammer in the mooorning, I’d hammer in the eeevening blah blah, like that. And then, I’d hammer out vengeance, I’d hammer out bloodshed, I’d hammer out death, to all, the genocidal butchers, blah blah. I can’t remember the rest.

Yeah, I miss him.

Beats me.

Ok, right.

Hell, no, I include myself. See, you’re still operating on all those assumptions you made when I first said that.

It’s a matter of your metric. If you use a norm referenced scale, I’m smarter than most people. I have an IQ deep in the top one percent. I didn’t do anything to earn it, it’s just the hand I was dealt. I’m smarter than average just like I’m taller than average. I’m not arrogant about it, it’s just a fact.

Sure. Now, if you use a criterion referenced scale, it’s another matter. It depends on your criterion. Here’s my criterion: I’m an idiot. I figured this out a long time ago. The more I learn about how much there is to know, the more obvious it is how little I understand things. There are plenty of people smarter than me, but that really isn’t saying much. But most people are dumber than I am and that scares the hell out of me.

Come on, all the problems in the world are the result of the fact that people are stupid, it’s that simple. There’s nobody else to blame. If were were smart we wouldn’t have made such a colossal fucking mess of everything. We’ve managed to turn paradise into hell in a few dozen generations. We’ve done such a miserable job of things we’ve actually provoked an intervention by an alien race.

No, that’s the kind of arrogance that comes of the assumption we’re civilized. We’re not. Look, we’re evolving in time. At any point you can say we’re at our most evolved. But the fact we’re evolving implies a continuous process, and it should be obvious we have lots of evolving to go. The truth is we’re mostly brutal, ignorant, superstitious savages.

Yeah, but that’s short term and almost entirely technological. You can argue we’ve made some social progress here and there but I’m really not convinced we’ve made any psychological progress at all.

Meaning we haven’t had time to evolve. And besides, I think the social dynamics we’ve been imbedded in since agriculture changed the face of them don’t really select for qualities I think of as evolved.

Well, whatever develops is by its nature evolved, so those qualities would probably be better described as, I don’t know, civilized maybe?

Tolerance, humility, selflessness . . .

Yeah, if we’re socialized for it and not everyone is, especially in the third world. Even at home it’s mostly a veneer.

Oh, come on, you think Americans are fundamentally different now than when we were slaughtering indians and lynching blacks? Remember Milgram?

I know, I should make it a campaign. Bumper stickers, billboards, you name it. Remember Milgram!

But those people are in the minority and I’m arguing there aren’t any more of them now than there was ten thousand years ago.

As a percentage, you think?

Don’t give me any grief, I’ll kick you out.

Yeah, what are you gonna do?

It takes some getting used to. I hate to admit this, but it’s kind of liberating. I feel like . . OW! God damn, Hakiz, what did you hit?

Slow down for those, the Blue Man will think you’re trying to kill me.

I know, I know, it’s ok.

No really, Hakiz, don’t worry about it.

Fuck it, let them take the lead for awhile.

No, no, we’ll be fine.

Shit, I’m an inch shorter now.

Beats me, you’re the one who . .

Hell I don’t know. Doesn’t matter, we could talk about human stupidity all day long, it’s a subject without any limits as far as I can see.

Stupidity, self interest and religious superstition.

Well sure, but I have that under self interest.

Come on, the vast majority humans, everywhere, believe in magic. They desperately want to invest in the idea that the whole universe and everything in it was created instantly by magic by some supernatural extra-cosmic entity. It’s ridiculous and it’s ignorance in its purest form, to ignore, in this case to ignore the most fundamental manifestations of physical laws, the same laws that hold everything together. But it’s a harmless fantasy as long as it doesn’t include killing me for not sharing the hallucination.

Because most people don’t. They can twist a creatively edited doctrine of some kind into a form they can use to justify any behavior. Most of the Hammer’s victims have been devout believers engaged in killing innocent people, in the name of a god, who told them it’s a sin to kill. How to you address that kind of irrationality?

But perfectly in keeping with our theme that people are stupid.

Look. Ethnic or religious or sectarian differences are just an excuse. We can always find an imaginary political or theological or social boundary to justify the dehumanization of others. Xenophobia is a one size fits all application, it’s infinitely adjustable. You can divide the entire globe into us versus them or you can make a stranger of your own brother, it doesn’t matter. And in a country of desperate want like this, it’s easy to persuade people who have little that the world is a zero sum game and their lot can only improve if they send unarmed neighbors to another one. But it ultimately boils down to whether or not you’re willing to put a bullet in someone just because he thinks or acts differently than you, whether someone told you to do it or not.

Think so? We’ve been told over and over again that the conflict is between us and them, but us and them are arbitrary and dynamic. The distinction I make is between people whose conduct is mostly peaceful and tolerant and people who are violent and disconnected. Every nation and every faith has both. But the peaceful and tolerant can’t reach across a border without drawing fire from the assholes who live next to them.

Jesus said to love your enemies. Try that in the US. It’s treason and christians will string you up.

Well shit, then who is a christian? We’re like snowflakes Russ, no two of us are completely alike. Take any two members of any christian church of any denomination anywhere, ask them the same twenty questions about christianity and see what you get.

But nobody asks themselves that, they’d rather go on being smug. Every fucking sect of every fucking religion thinks nobody else is doing it right. They’re all cocksure they’re the only ones going upstairs when it’s over, and even then, no matter how small the group is, some of them are gonna have doubts about the guy sitting next to them. Heaven must be a really small place.

Hell, I’ve read the gospels and I haven’t met many people I’d consider christian. But who am I to say? I just don’t see much of Jesus’ guidance in any church. The way I understand organized Christianity, conduct is meaningless, if you’re in the club you get a free ticket to the promised land. All you have to do is say I’m a christian and go back to stuffing jews in ovens.

Ok, it’s a little dated, but . .

Exactly.

Yeah, I’m on a roll. Shit, we haven’t even talked about the Blue Man.

Me . . and my sha . . dow . . God damn it’s hot.

I know, not what you expected, is it?

Well, it’s the fabric I’m cut from, I’ve always been this way.

It goes back as far as I can remember. The world never has made any sense to me.

It’s weird, I’m torn between two extremes. I love people and I hate ‘em at the same time.

No, I’m a fundamentally social being, I like the company of people. Or I should say I have a need for the company of people, but most of the time I feel like I’m in a bad movie or something and the longer I’m around someone, usually the worse it gets. I fell into engineering because the details of the work are objective and logical. I design electrical systems and see to it that they perform according to clear and unambiguous criteria and I’m good at it. I’m a classic nerd in that regard, I know that. But I need social contact too, so I found a job that lets me do technical things, but also takes me around the world. I meet lots of different people, interesting people, but I don’t spend enough time with them to have to deal with the crap I don’t understand.

No, not like that, I can be sympathetic, it’s just . . Ok, it’s like Egypt . .

No, no, stay with me here. Ever been there?

When I was about nine. We traveled a lot when I was growing up. My old man used to take us to Germany because he was half German and spoke the language. It was nice, but not that different from the US. There are old stone buildings and the occasional castle and stuff, but mostly paved streets, frame houses, people dressed the same. Then one summer we went to Egypt and it was like landing on another planet. Man, it was unbelievable. The pyramids, the Sphinx, mummies, you name it, I’d never seen it before. Not just different, but completely fucking different in every way, the people, the clothes, the architecture, everything. When you’re nine years old and ride a camel past the Sphinx at night to watch belly dancers in big tent in the desert you’re never the same again.

No shit, I was in heaven, I loved it. Then one day when I’m seventeen I’m doing a report on Egypt for some class and I’m reading about how the Khufu pyramid has, like, two million granite blocks and they built it in something like twenty years. My first thought was, fucking amazing! Without heavy machinery, a bunch of scrawny laborers laid up, what, two million . . twenty . . that’s . . a hundred thousand a year . . three . . say sixty . . no, say three thirty three . . three into a thousand . . hang on . . that’s like three hundred a day. They quarried, transported, shaped and stacked three hundred, two-ton blocks, every fucking day, seven days a week, for twenty years.

I know. Three hundred every single day, so . .

Right, right . .

Anyway, as I sit there basking in the glow of this newfound appreciation, I have an epiphany.

Nope.

No, that the whole fucking enterprise, along with all the other pyramids, the sphinx, the mummies, all the gold and jewels and everything, ok? All that crap was a total fucking waste of time.

A total . . waste . . of time. Their entire culture was based on a model of reality that was completely wrong. They were wrong about everything. That entire massive, sustained effort was designed so one sorry bastard could drag all his Pharaoh crap with him into the next world. Surprise! You can’t take it with you.

I know, what the hell were they thinking? First of all, if I was headed across that river, I’d have to assume there’d be lots cooler stuff on the side where the gods live. Hauling all that worldly shit into the afterlife would have to look like the Clampetts showing up in Beverly Hills, right?

And imagine the next guy. He’s charged with seeing to it all that stuff leaves the station with you. He has to be thinking, shit, now I have to go scare up another hundred tons of gold and jewels for me.

It made grave robbers happy for a long time. Hell, it’s made a good living for embalmers for six or eight thousand years.

It doesn’t make any sense to me, I’m donating my body.

Of course. Let somebody get some use out of it. I have a picture in my mind of a bunch of third year med students standing around a lab table making fun of my genitals. What could be better than that?

Comedy is hard. If my corpse can get some laughs . .

Where the hell was I?

Egypt, Egypt . .

I’ll get to that in a second. Anyway, do you think any of the Egyptians had things figured out? I mean, do you think around a fire someplace one night somebody was going, hey guys, we’re making a terrible mistake!

Well, that’s the way I feel about the world I live in, even where everything’s going great.

Same thing. Everything. Religion, economics, social dynamics, you name it, we’ve got it all wrong.
I don’t understand any of it. Let me give you one simple example. There was a time when charging someone interest when you loaned them money was called usury and it was considered a sin. Now a credit card company can rip you for thirty percent a year. The guy who dreamed that up doesn’t give a shit if you can pay for daycare or not, he got a big bonus for that idea. He drives a seven series Beamer or a full size Hummer and goes to church and sleeps like a baby. He vacations in Cannes and younger women with flat stomachs want to have his children, who will be raised by perfect strangers. He’s a success and everyone else wants to be like him. I think that’s insane, but what the fuck do I know?

That’s the point I’m trying to make, I just see things differently than everyone else. I’m as fucked up as the next guy, they’re just different fuckups. People don’t understand me any more than I understand them. So I keep busy doing things I do understand and socialize where I can. There are just limits on how close I can get to people.

No, I’m fine with that. Compared to cutting people’s heads off or raping little boys it’s easy to live with.

I know, I can’t keep my mouth shut. Take a nap if you want, I can do this without you.

Ok then, pick a topic.

Wing it.

Come on, you can do better than that.

So what, Paul will pick you up, you can’t lose.

Go for it.

Ooo, that’s better.

Yeah, but you might not.

First of all, what do you mean by god?

No I’m not. There are six billion human brains out there, and inside each one is a different picture of god. Snowflakes, remember?

Yeah, today’s program was brought to you by Stanley Milgram and the word snowflakes.

No, don’t get me off track, I’ll never get back. God and snowflakes. Let’s see . .

All I want to do is operationally define the word god.

And they are. So what do they have in common?

Ok . .

Ok, but what’s important is that it’s separate.

But what you’re talking about is a creature, a being, a separate and distinct object, right? An entity that may or may not have a human form, but is nonetheless localized in space and time with finite boundaries.

Well, another dimension then. Gods used to live on the mountains or in the woods, but they’ve had to move to better neighborhoods to avoid the riffraff.

But you understand the point I’m trying to make. The word god does not typically refer to an energy or consciousness or force. When you’re talking about God or a god, you’re talking about a being, separate from everything else, with some kind of form, probably containing recognizable features like a face. The face of the god of Abraham is right there in the Sistine Chapel for everyone to see.

Or so they say.

Right.

Of course.

Supernatural, with magical powers, whatever . .

So, if you think the source of everything is bigger than that, if it can’t be contained or localized, do you still call it god?

I just want to avoid any misunderstanding.

Ok, then let’s put God on ice for a minute.

I’m going to cut to the chase and tell you what I think.

About everything.

Yeah, Life, the Universe, Everything.

Can you handle it?

That’s not what I asked you.

Shit, I might change my mind.

Well, in that case . .

Ok, it’s pretty simple. Deep within the cosmic architecture exists an animus for the awareness and appreciation of its own existence. This influence is manifest . .

Shit, it doesn’t matter, you have it on tape.

Ok. Start with the universe. It has structure, ok? There may be aspects of it we aren’t aware of but it doesn’t matter, it has an arrangement of parts, a configuration. I used the word architecture . .

Look, just let me lay it all out, ok? We can go over it later. You’ll pick it up in context anyway.

Ok, good. Here we go. The universe, the cosmos, has a structure. A property of that structure, just like gravity or entropy, is a tendency, an intentionality, towards the emergence of form, and at its root, of consciousness . .

No, let me finish. Where conditions permit, for instance on planets with atmosphere, liquid water, and net solar energy income, this tendency manifests as the spontaneous self-organization of complex, integrated biological systems. These systems contain organic sensory mechanisms which ultimately mature over eons as units of self perception. The field of this perception expands to embrace the cosmic architecture itself.

Yep.

That’s it. The fifteen billion year history of the universe, and the purpose of life. Everything in twenty seconds.

No it’s not, it’s a simple observation of material fact. We’re embedded in a vast, complex planetary ecology. It’s real, it’s not imaginary, it exists. I don’t have to take it on faith, I can see it, measure it, consider how it operates. The question is, how did it come into being? Is self-organization a property of the universe? Or was everything made by a separate supernatural entity, a god?

I look around. I see a huge, symbiotic network of living things. I accept that it came into being over billions of years. All around us in the nearly infinite reaches of space, stars are forming, stars are exploding, galaxies are spinning around massive black holes, all kinds of amazing things are happening. All matter and energy are constantly in flux, responding the the inherent properties and forces of the cosmos. Life is no exception, it responds to cosmic forces, it’s perfectly in keeping with my understanding of the operation of the universe, I don’t need to invent an independent contractor to explain it.

I’m fine with that.

I just don’t draw a distinction between creator and created. So, if self-organization is a property of the universe, should you call it god?

But it’s not the same thing. It has no form, you can’t interact with it, it’s not a being.

Well of course it does, don’t deliberately misunderstand me . .

Right. So if I pray to gravity it might operate differently?

Exactly. But if it performs the function we attribute to a god . .

Shit, I don’t know.

Yeah, I do. I can’t help it, even though it doesn’t make any sense to me.

Well, I call the Blue Man he, even though I know he’s an it.

I don’t know that it matters, the implications seem the same to me and I don’t understand the way we interpret them.

Let me ask you this. If you believe in a creator, why wouldn’t you believe that what he created is sacred in some way?

So what?

Dominion is a charge of responsibility, not a license to trash the place. Wasn’t it Eden once?

I know, I just don’t understand it. I would think the things created by God are what is sacred, and the things created by man that are profane.

Once again, what the fuck do I know?

See, now you’re off into the zone where you can believe anything you want and justify anything you want. I try to start with the implications of what I can observe. We’re part of a vast, planetary organism, that’s simply a fact, I can see that. Whatever or whoever the creator is, that’s what the creator created and therefore by it’s nature, it’s a sacred thing. So it follows that whatever behavior contributes to the health of that organism is good and whatever interferes with it is evil.

Because it’s at cross purposes with the function and objective of life.

To perceive and appreciate the universe.

Well, at least for starters. I don’t know what the next step might be.

No, no, you don’t have to be a fucking astronomer, shit.

Ok, more than that, you don’t have to be human to enjoy eating, screwing, the sun on your face, blah, blah. Those are just sensory events. We can also appreciate abstract qualities.

Right, a profound appreciation that arises out of the realization that the universe is a huge, huge, amazing fucking place. But doesn’t have to be on a cosmic scale, it can happen watching bugs in your back yard.

It’s the need of the universe to experience and enjoy the nature and details of its own existence.
We’re the neural net, the brain, the motor and sensory apparatus, the eyes and ears of the planetary organism. We are the physical manifestation, the emergence of that cosmic property of self-organization into a material form in which the universe is not only self aware, but out of that consciousness can actually operate willfully on itself.

I know, I’m trying to avoid evoking an ancient axiom just because it got co-opted by Jewel, but it’s still the point I’m trying to make. We are the eyes of God, the hands of God. We are all there is.

That’s what everyone wants to believe. But it doesn’t matter, the outcome is the same, God doesn’t do shit. Nothing ever happens by magic, nothing ever get done around here unless we do it. We make the world. It’s up to us to take care of one another and the place we live. There is no one else. Until now, of course . .

Exactly . .

And I don’t.

So getting back to humans . .

I know, but it’s all going wrong, we’re fucking it all up. We’ve become a disease, a cancer.

Think about it, what is cancer? It’s not a foreign agent, you know, a virus or toxin, it’s you, it’s your own cells, growing outside the pattern of the body. And those cells are healthy tissue, but because their growth isn’t guided properly, they devour the other systems of the body. The cancer is doing great until it kills you.

I know, just like that.

No, it’s you divided against yourself.

Well, it starts by seeing what’s happening. It still comes down to believing what you see or believing some bullshit fairy story.

Listen, there are plenty of people out there who make fat fortunes telling people what they want to hear. One is that believing in things will make them come true. It’s horseshit. Visualizing food never fed anyone.

Whatever.

Yeah, I know, it doesn’t matter what I believe, I’m an anomaly, a fucking freak.

Sure.

What god are we talking about here? Do you mean an invisible god in human form, localized in space and time? Floating around in the ozone somewhere, constantly screwing with human events? Most of the world is christian or muslim, and this is the popular form of big G, the whining, infantile, neurotic, tribal icon of Abraham. What an asshole. Have you read the bible?

Not really. You can see through all that crap without it, but it’s great for confirmation. For me it just reinforced the reality that all people respect is power. Otherwise, how can you buy into a character possessed of omniscience and omnipotence who wields it so irresponsibly?

Well, posit the existence of a creature capable of creating a universe. I can only assume that the difference between that intelligence and my intelligence would have to be at least as great as the difference between my intelligence and the intelligence of . . I don’t know . . a bacterium. Now, how well do you think a bacterium can understand me?

Right. It doesn’t mean there can’t be some interaction. I assume that if I were to speak to a bacterium, the sound waves I emit might produce some kind of disturbance in the medium surrounding it that it could detect somehow, but I’m not so sure it would be getting the message.

Sure, some of the more subtle nuances might get lost in the translation. Anyway, you get the picture. Now, let’s get back to Yahoo for a moment.

Yahweh, sorry. John used to call him Yahoo, I love that.

I know. But it doesn’t matter now. Anyway, Yahoo is a sorry bastard if there ever was one, petulant, vindictive, and useless. As the tribal war god of the hebrews, he’s a total fuckup. He has his thumb up his ass while the Babylonians and the Romans and the Nazis and half a dozen other empires disembowel his chosen people.

I guess he used up all his plagues and rivers of blood in Egypt. The jews still love the guy though, which is once again in keeping with our theme today that . .

Exactly. Now christians love Yahoo because he’s treated them a lot better. I’m a little unclear about this one god thing, though. It looks to me like christians mostly worship Jesus in flagrant disregard for the first commandment. Maybe they bought God off by offering to get all ten of them posted in schools, even though the commandments are the law of Moses and a Jewish thing.

No, Jesus is the shit. He has it all over Yahoo, so I can understand his appeal. The new testament contains some of the deepest wisdom there is, even though it’s been mined from earlier traditions. But nobody pays any attention to that stuff, people would have to change their behavior and who wants that? No, it’s all about Jesus the lobbyist. Sign up with the carpenter, he puts in a good word for you with his dad.

Because it’s ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous.

Well, I think it starts at home. We evolved with expectations of an orderly universe. Whether you’re a man or chimp or a wildebeest, you’re born alone and lost in a world you don’t understand. But there’s a female around who takes care of you, and somewhere beyond her there’s a male who’s clearly in charge. They create your world, provide everything you need to live. They understand the world and can operate on it for your benefit. This expectation runs very, very deep. It’s the nature of your reality. When you’re grown, you want the same thing. The universe is a big, complicated place and we’re mostly at the mercy of some asshole. You want there to be someone who’s ultimately in absolute control and on your side. Just like your dad was. Or should have been. But there isn’t. So you make him up.

Look, people started inventing gods as explanations for natural forces. You can’t do shit about the weather if it’s a consequence of global atmospheric conditions. But if the weather was actually made or controlled by somebody, maybe you could appeal to him to bring you some rain when your crops need it. So you make him up and petition him. Prayer, sacrifice, all that crap. Sometimes you get rain, sometime you don’t, it’s an intermittent reinforcement schedule. Impossible to extinguish, but that’s ok, it’s what you want. You can handle the droughts, you just can’t handle the idea there’s nobody up there with his hand on the valve. So when your woman is deathly ill or the guys from the next valley come to plunder the fields you worked so hard and sacrificed for, what do you do? You need help and there ain’t anybody around.

In this life. For most of human existence, it was all about intervention in this life. You know, the weather gods or the war gods didn’t have anything to do with any afterlife, people wanted explanations and interventions for their everyday lives.

Right. And if you have a hard life as a desert nomad and your dad was a jealous, vindictive asshole, that’s the model you have to work with. The point is, most people don’t want a vast, subtle, complex, permeating essence for a creator. They want an all-powerful enforcer who will kick ass on the people they don’t like, if not in this world than in the next one. You want someone who shapes the outcome of human events, and when you ask if someone believes in God, that’s what they want to be true.

Most people do. So, the question is, does that god really exist?

What?

Really? You haven’t been paying attention. Of course he exists.

Oh, he’s quite real. I don’t know where he is or what he looks like but he’s out there somewhere, right now, watching. And he’s an angry god, a vindictive god. Those who displease him, he annihilates. He is the god men have long awaited, wished for. He is the god of men’s dreams. This god has sent his Avatar. I am his prophet.

You can turn that off now.