Oh God, You Devil

posted by killre If there is a God, He is autistic. Believe me, I would rather have opened with a bolder blaspheme.  "If there is a God, He is a sadistic prick," for instance; or, "If there is a God, He is a bi-polar monster." Best of all would have been, "There is no God, and I can prove it," but this site is about honesty (which, unfortunately, is not always to say accuracy) and I, alas, can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a Grand Architect.  I'd hang my head in eternal shame were it not for the redemptive realization:  Neither can you. In the spirit of honesty then, and not just to show I can blaspheme from both sides of the plate, let me point out something about the Theory of Intelligent Design that most non-believers won't admit, even to themselves:  In its purest form, it has merit. Moons slingshot around planets, planets whirl like tireless dancers 'round their stars, stars sweep in majestic arcs past their galactic cores and it all happens at a speed both breathtakingly slow and mind-bendingly fast, and by a wildly improbable balance of forces. Too big a picture? Okay... electrons zip around nuclei, atoms collide to form molecules, molecules cluster to form compounds, compounds commune into matter and occasionally that matter grows a brain able to grasp that quantum entanglement happens, but unable to say why. Too small?  Try this: there is a mathematical precision to musical harmony.  It is not a human construct.  We did not invent music, we discovered it.  Difference. What makes non-believers (and many may-believers) really gnash their teeth over Intelligent Design, though, is that true-believers rarely leave it in its purest form.  They adulterate it, and in doing so knock it from its precarious perch as a speculative science into the realm of, well, speculative theology by trying to answer questions like Who God Is, What God Said, When God Did such-and-such and, of course, How He Wants You To Act. Which brings us, as you surely knew it would, to Richard Mourdock, the Republican candidate for a United States Senate seat from the grate state of Indiana, who, on October 23rd, said: "I believe that life begins at conception.  Uh, the only exception I have for, uh, to have an abortion is in that case of the life of the mother.  I, I just... I struggled with it myself for a long time but I came to realize life is that gift from God, and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is, uh, something that God intended to happen."

I suppose I shouldn't slam Mourdock.  He believes what he believes and deserves some credit for actually telling us what he believes, which is far more than can be said for the presidential candidate who personally endorsed him, Willard "Mitt" Romney.  (It is mildly possible that Mourdock is merely tacking right:  his Democratic opponent, Joe Donnelly, is also anti-abortion.  Mildly possible, as I said, albeit unlikely.)

Mourdock does lose a few points for the non-apology apology he later gave the Washington Post:

"If there was any interpretation other than what I intended, I really regret that.  Anyone who goes to the video tape and views that understands fully what I meant."

Yes, by all means, let's go to the tape: "I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."

So you're saying, Mr. Mourdock, that the creator of the cosmos, who is credited with all sorts of neat-o abilities including, in The Gospel According to Matthew, the ability to initiate a pregnancy without physical intercourse of any kind --consensual, clinical or criminal-- and who loved the world so much that he gave us his only begotten son so we could kill that peace-loving hippie and thus save ourselves from our God-given violent nature... THAT creator not only intends the pregnancy to occur, but intends it to result from one human being overpowering another and forcibly violating and traumatizing them.  Because I have seen the tape, sir, and that's what I fully understand you to have meant.

If so, God is either a sadistic prick or dangerously, dangerously bi-polar.

That was my first thought, anyway, but there are other possibilities.  Perhaps God --whomever or whatever He, She or It is-- has simply lost interest over the eons, the way anyone with a life does with fantasy sports.  Perhaps God erred in creating an animal that could one day call him a monster.  On the other hand, maybe God recognizes his own monsterous flaws and created a species capable of adoring Him in spite of His imperfections.

Perhaps, of course, there is no God.

Or maybe, just maybe, there is some sort of creator who intimately understands the push and pull between gravity and centrifugal force, who intuitively grasps the dizzying workings of quantum mechanics, who can comprehend harmony in many of its myriad forms... but is completely stumped by the mysteries of human interaction, like someone with autism.

If so, He should be disregarded in this area.

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P.S... Bud "Everyone Enjoy Your Free Taco, Courtesy of The Pagan Angel" Selig must go.