Concept of God
When you’re very young, you learn the concept of God.
Nothing spectacular, just the idea that there’s some
supposedly benevolent creator out there somewhere,
and that you’re meant to acknowledge he exists.
When you get a bit older, you might start seeing the cracks:
sure, He’s there, but like a gentleman, he won’t do anything
for you until you let him into your life, and he’ll only
help you if you help yourself—He’s less like a parent now
and more like that supervisor you had at camp that one time.
And, one day, you learn about how He’s the vengeful God,
who protects you and the people around you that agree with you
on the particulars of a few matters, but everyone else is sent
to a special, supposedly very hot, place after they die.
The people who agree with you, of course, get to go to a
special paradise after they die, because why wouldn’t they?
Of course, one of these days, you’re going to have doubts,
and one of these days one of your compatriots will say, “Have
you truly not seen miracles in your own life?”, and of course,
you say yes, like the good sheep you are, because you don’t want
to be seen as the black sheep who went his own way, do you?
Because what happens to those who go their own way? They lose
their community because of the shadows of the doubts they have.
But maybe you do go your own way, because maybe you’ve
riddled out that every religion is like yours, and claims what yours
has always claimed to be, and you realise that maybe there’s a
little more to life than worshipping a vengeful God every Sunday.
And maybe you’ve riddled out that life is full of wonder and you
don’t need a mystery man from who knows where that nobody can
show for sure is there to provide that wonder, because it’s all right
there in your own life without your mysterious man of vengeance.
Nothing spectacular, just the idea that there’s some
supposedly benevolent creator out there somewhere,
and that you’re meant to acknowledge he exists.
When you get a bit older, you might start seeing the cracks:
sure, He’s there, but like a gentleman, he won’t do anything
for you until you let him into your life, and he’ll only
help you if you help yourself—He’s less like a parent now
and more like that supervisor you had at camp that one time.
And, one day, you learn about how He’s the vengeful God,
who protects you and the people around you that agree with you
on the particulars of a few matters, but everyone else is sent
to a special, supposedly very hot, place after they die.
The people who agree with you, of course, get to go to a
special paradise after they die, because why wouldn’t they?
Of course, one of these days, you’re going to have doubts,
and one of these days one of your compatriots will say, “Have
you truly not seen miracles in your own life?”, and of course,
you say yes, like the good sheep you are, because you don’t want
to be seen as the black sheep who went his own way, do you?
Because what happens to those who go their own way? They lose
their community because of the shadows of the doubts they have.
But maybe you do go your own way, because maybe you’ve
riddled out that every religion is like yours, and claims what yours
has always claimed to be, and you realise that maybe there’s a
little more to life than worshipping a vengeful God every Sunday.
And maybe you’ve riddled out that life is full of wonder and you
don’t need a mystery man from who knows where that nobody can
show for sure is there to provide that wonder, because it’s all right
there in your own life without your mysterious man of vengeance.