Where did he come from? These are questions you ask if you’re honest. A lot of you aren’t satisfied with the choice of answers to the question, “Do you believe in God?” “Yes” will get you laughs in some circles. “No” will get you stoned in others. Well, listen to this – you’ll know it’s true the minute you hear it and feel relieved of a burden. There is a third alternative to the man in the long gray beard and the abstraction.
Those of us who read science fiction have met this dude before. There’s one on every spaceship – a guy who wants to mess with the natives – give them phasers, maybe atomics. It feels funny taking off and leaving barbarians alone with techie toys, so they try to instill a sense of decency in them. Some morality.
God decided the only thing that works is fear. Kinder tactics had failed with the current inhabitants of the Promised Land, and he told the Jews he would kick their idolatrous asses out of there, if his children would obey a few simple rules of universal courtesy. Don’t steal, don’t murder, leave your friend’s wife alone, if you borrow your neighbor’s lawnmower, give it back.
And no graven images, please. I don’t like the way you envision my face. Your sculpture is pathetic, and you fall in love with it. Stick to basics. I’m invisible. I make thunder and lightning and rainbows. You don’t need a picture of me. Or of any lambs or rams or bunny rabbits because you’re too prone to fall down on your knees in awe of your own art.
So what are all these pictures of Christ and statues of Mary and saints, and lambs and yes, even bunny rabbits! Christians think they’re worshipping Jehovah, but it’s some other member of some much later crew, the third or fourth, who wanted a piece of the action. This new guy doesn’t mind graven images. He doesn’t mind non-kosher food. He doesn’t keep any of Jehovah’s mandatory holidays.
Which is as it should be, because very few Jews became Christians, and you cannot become a Jew. You are either born one or you aren’t. You’re welcome to follow the Mosaic laws, but that doesn’t make you one of the chosen people. Most Jews didn’t accept Christ, so he had to look elsewhere for disciples. Jews didn’t accept him because Moses said God said, “Don’t add a word to what I tell you.” And Jesus was one of those editors who can’t keep his red pencil off the manuscript.
There was no mention of God having a child. God would have been appalled. He’d already had a time with his own sons, members of his crew, no less, who had become attracted to the daughters of men. He put an end to it. But not before they sloppily created a race of giants. Goliath was a blood relative of God. Not much mentioned. An embarrassing relation – a tell-tale reminder of peacekeepers’ proclivity to procreate with the clients.
But didn’t God go in unto Sarah? I think not. I think he sent a surrogate, some stud – do the lady a favor. God had little interest in sex itself. He found it more or less repulsive, but useful as a means of making more soldiers.
God is a pessimist. He knows from the start that these people are not going to listen to him and in the end he’s going to do in most of them and scatter the rest among the heathens. And it turns out just as he predicted! Well, whaddaya know about that?
