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The following is a fictional conversation between a recently deceased Christian, a recently deceased atheist, and a being called "god." God in this story looks a lot like Billy Connolly in Boondock Saints. This conversation is entirely fictional, and does not necessarily represent my own views of god or the afterlife. I wrote this for fun, to get readers to think. Enjoy...
Christian: “Is this heaven?”
Atheist: “Who are you?”
God: “I am who I am.”
Atheist: “And who’s that?”
God: “You may call me 'God'.”
Christian: “My Lord!”
God: “Who are you?”
Christian: “I’m Bill Raymond, my Lord. I accepted your son Jesus into my heart to be my Savior 15 years ago.”
God: "Right. About that..."
Christian: "Yes, Lord?"
God: "I don't have a son."
Christian: "What?"
God: "Look, just because someone tells you he's the 'Son of God' doesn't make it so."
Christian: "I don't understand."
God: "Jesus was just an eccentric rabbi. His followers were even worse."
Christian: "But what about all of Jesus' miracles?"
God: "Did you see any of them?"
Christian: "Well, no, but they are recorded in the Bible."
God: "And?"
Christian: "And... the Bible is the Word of God."
God: "Who wrote it?"
Christian: "Many people wrote it. But they were all inspired by, well, you. Right?"
God: "How did you come to that conclusion?"
Christian: "Well, lots of reasons."
God: "Such as?"
Christian: "Manuscript evidence."
God and Atheist together: "Manuscript evidence?"
Christian: "... Yeah..."
God: "Don't tell me: you read that Josh McDowell book, didn't you?"
Christian: "Well, yeah, and a couple Lee Strobel books."
Atheist: "God help us."
God: "Irony. I love it."
Christian: "The Bible is completely infallible..."
Atheist: "And I'm Queen of England."
Christian: "... just look at all the historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ, and the extra-biblical sources that mention Jesus, and..."
God: "Hold it. Look, you seem like a nice guy with good intentions, but listen: the Josh McDowells and the Lee Strobels and especially the William Lane Craigs of the world don't know anything about me. They want you to think they found me after searching for the truth, but all they have is faith, along with awkward, flimsy arguments in an attempt to support their faith."
Atheist: "Well then allow me to ask my original question: who are you?"
God: "I'm God. At least, I'm what you humans might consider to be 'god'. Humans have an uncanny ability to create (and then proceed to worship) all sorts of different 'god' concepts - most of them having little resemblance to me."
Atheist: "Okay, so why didn't you communicate to us more clearly? I saw no evidence of your existence when I was alive. All the people who for whatever reason think they understand deity can never agree with each other. Why not just send a clear message so we all understand?"
Christian: "God communicates to us through the Holy Spirit. I have experienced god myself."
God: "You haven't experienced me at all. Had I wanted to communicate with you, I would have. And my message would have been unequivocably clear. This aspect of human theology makes absolutely no sense. If I wanted to send a message to the humans, or wanted to 'bring salvation' to the world like the Christians say, why would I be so vague and ambiguous as the god of your Christianity? Especially when one considers the severity of the threat found in the Christian message of salvation: if people I created were going to hell, I'd certainly want to let them know as quickly, clearly and concisely as possible what they need to do to avoid such a place."
Christian: "What about my experiences? I felt Christ in my heart. I felt the Holy Spirit move."
God: "You felt what you convinced yourself to feel. Or you felt the reaction of chemicals in your brain. Or you were just confused as to what it was exactly that you felt. Personal experience isn't reliable at all. You had religious experiences. So did your Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, and Buddhist neighbors. So did all those 'new age' oddballs you said were going to hell. Their experiences felt just as real to them as yours did to you. And you were all wrong. Fortunately, I'm not some capricious and petty deity bent on making people suffer because they believed something that was incorrect."
Christian: "So... there's no such place as hell?"
God: "Why would there be? Why would I create a place of never-ending torment? Maybe I'd make such a place for the Hitlers and child molesters of the world, but eternal torture? I might make them suffer for a while and then remove them from existence, if I were even going to do something like 'hell.' But I don't even do that. I don't set myself up as the judge of the earth. I try to stay out of things. You humans call it 'deism'."
Atheist: "But why? Surely you see all the intense pain and suffering in the world. Why stand by and do nothing?"
God: "Imagine if I got involved. Humans would always be expecting me to intervene. There are some who already do! When humans evolved to the point of understanding abstract concepts like human rights, personal responsibility and morality, I determined the best course of action for me to take is to leave humans alone so they could figure out for themselves how to pull themselves up and take care of their fellow man."
Atheist: "But aren't you supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful? Couldn't you have figured out a way to intervene in such a way that would at least reduce the obscene amount of needless suffering while still maintaining a level of anonymity? I heard the apologists talk about suffering having a purpose, but what about all the needless suffering? It won't take you long to find obscenely intense and horrific pain in the world. Why not put an end to it?"
God: "I think I'm all-knowing, but how could I possibly know that? All I know is, well, all I know (and I have enough of a time just trying to remember all the things I know), and if there's something I don't know, then I don't know that I don't know it. Even an all-knowing being can't step outside himself to see whether there's something beyond his current knowledge that he doesn't know. Thus, the phrase 'all-knowing' is a bit misleading, for there's at least that one thing I can't know."
Atheist: "Fine. What about being all-powerful?"
God: "Naturally. What kind of god wouldn't be? I can't make 'four sided circles' or 'married bachelors,' because that's contradictory. I also can't make nonsense things like a car made out of love, or a balloon filled with sleep. Those aren't really things since they lead to a contradiction and thus don't really communicate anything. That said, I can do any-thing.
Atheist: "Okay."
God: "You asked why I don't stop the needless suffering. Like I said, I determined that it's best that I don't get involved at all. I could end some of the 'needless' suffering, but where does it stop? I'm sure many would disagree with me - and with each other - concerning which pain and suffering is in fact 'needless'. Should I just end all suffering? Some might say yes, but if I did that then the human race wouldn't grow. Pain is a motivator. Pain and suffering is a reminder to humans that such things as compassion and love are good things. If I took it all away, humans would get soft."
Atheist: "I don't know what to think of that. Seems to me an all-knowing (or whatever you want to call yourself) and all-powerful being could have created the world differently, and avoid this problem altogether."
Christian: "I don't know what to think of any of this. So... did we get anything right? Did you create the universe?"
God: "Yes, I created the universe. At least, I got the ball rolling in a Thomistic 'first cause' kinda way. Everything else happened on its own."
Christian: "Is there a heaven?"
God: "There's an 'afterlife', as you Christians call it. After all, you did die and now you are here with me."
Atheist: "Where's 'here'?"
God: "Actually, right now we're just outside your solar system. See that pale blue dot in the distance? That's earth."
Atheist: "God is a Carl Sagan fan. You do love irony. So... are we dead?"
God: "You were. I reassembled you. That about as much of an afterlife as you humans are going to get."
Atheist: "Why did you 'reassemble' us?"
God: "I get lonely."
Atheist: "But you're perfect, aren't you? Perfect beings shouldn't get lonely."
God: "True, but I never said I was perfect. Again, humans conjure up all sorts of different god concepts, and this notion of perfection is one of those attributes humans made up to describe this god they worship that doesn't exist."
Christian: "Did you at least enjoy our worship?"
God: "No! Why would I want worship? I'm neither insecure nor egotistic nor megalomaniacal. I don't want worship, and I certainly don't need worship. I know how awesome I am. I don't need you humans to remind me. Besides, most of you can't sing. It may be a 'joyful noise' to you, but it sounds like garbage to me. And I hate to say it, but those worship songs you humans love to sing in church? They're awful."
Christian: "Oh. That's a relief. I've always been more into heavy metal, even though my dad called it the devil's music. Ha... I guess there's no devil either."
God: "Right."
Christian: "So, are you eternal?"
God: "I don't know. This is another situation where I'd have to 'step outside of myself' to know for certain. I can't remember a time when I didn't exist, but then again, neither can you, so that's not saying much. As far as I can tell, I've always been around."
Atheist: "So what happens now?"
God: "That depends on what you want to do. Unlike most made-up gods, I actually give humans real choices. Let's chat. Follow me..."
Dead-Logic.com
