Mr. God, I have a few questions for you. Not that I’m doubting you or anything – I don’t think I’m properly insulated, let alone earthed, so the thought of a bolt of lightning passing swiftly through the night is not one I’d like to consider. Nonetheless, I think there’s a bunch of stuff that’s going on here that you seem to have missed, and which you play a fairly important role in. In fact, you’re the centerpiece, but you seem to be pulling a no show these days. All right, granted, nailing that son of yours to a cross (which we made him build) doesn’t seem to have been the right thing to do, but it’s been two thousand years. Also, you didn’t give him a very good resume. A virgin birth is spectacular and all, but firstly, I don’t think too many people believed it back then, and secondly, I think Mary (his mum, not Magdalene) got a bit of a raw deal. Magdalene also got a raw deal, come to think of it.
Mr. God, we’re sorry. And we’re quite fucked too, for that matter. Yes, it’s quite typical of us humans to ignore you while the going’s good, and come crying when everything goes wahoonie shaped, but you’re like the universal parent, aren’t you? If you just gave us life, and then kicked us out, that’s quite a shady thing to do. If not, then I really think you owe it to us to give us a hand. Personally, I don’t even quite believe in you, so therefore, I must assume that I’m insane to write a letter to you; but there are a lot of people out there counting on you – who’ve dedicated their lives to doing good things in your name. Please at least think about it?
Coming to the questions though – a lot of them have absolutely no bearing on the way the world is going, more of me trying to understand you. Yes, I’m an arrogant fool to assume that I can comprehend what others die trying to, but you knew that anyway, didn’t you?
Firstly, man, who are you? As in, which one are you? Err. Yes, that was the right question. You have a bunch of names – Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Jehovah, Allah, the Father, so on, and so forth. I think the problem we’re having here is that we’re getting a little confused as to which one you’d actually like to be. You can also have all of them, of course, but it would make life a whole lot easier if you just let us know. People are dying here, man – there’s people out there that believe almost exactly the same thing, but they’re fighting and dying because their interpretation – or because what their particular prophet told them differs in the specifics. This brings me to my second question.
Dude, seriously, what was the point of having so many religions? We love you just the way you are, you don’t have to change. All right, the Christianity and Judaism bits are quite similar, so we can probably put that divide down to human conceit (after all, they share the same book, don’t they?), but what in the name of…err, what in your name was the point of putting a warrior religion, Islam, right there next to them? You’ve also confused the fuck out of a lot of people, you know. You’ve given us two different religions – Christianity and Islam – and you’ve told BOTH of them that their God is the only God. Were you looking for a fight, or what?
Look at what’s going on in the world – hell, what’s gone on in the world for centuries now. How many wars have been fought in your name, how many of your children have been slaughtered, tortured, burned, and destroyed utterly, all in your name? How much blood has blackened the souls of your chosen warriors, who destroyed entire civilisations for your greater glory? The crusades are still being fought, my lord – your children still kill one another because you never taught us to share. It could be a sign that there’s no difference between us, having the same holy land – but then tell us, won’t you? This game of spiritual dumb charades will be the death of us, else.
How can you stand your religions being perverted and raped of all decent meaning, by greedy, selfish men, whose only thirst is power? Muslims are brainwashed into believing that there is no greater purpose in life than to die for a cause – when surely the greatest purpose would be to live for that very same cause? They believe that in sacrificing themselves with your name on their lips, and killing a few thousand souls in the process, in your name, they have assured themselves a place in Jannat. Is this justice? Is this the truth you told us to seek out? Christians are no better, I might add. Their weapons are simply different. They’ve been on top for so long that they’ve come to believe that they have a right to existence beyond all the rest of us. Our deaths are termed as ‘collateral damage’, while if you read their newspapers (these sheets of paper folded together with recent events and opinions and things printed on them), each Christian death (well, I mean American, really, it’s pretty much turning into a zealot country) is a martyr’s death. They’ve usurped the right to set the rules of the world, what with being the most powerful countries, and somehow it seems that no matter what we do, they always take home the money.
God, why is there so much inequality? In Hollywood, people spend thousands and thousands of dollars a day on clothes, and cars, and watches, basically shiny, sparkly stuff that they want to own first. In my country, some people exist on half a dollar a day. Even less, sometimes.
In Africa, AIDS rages unimpeded because your voice on earth, the Pope is against the use of contraceptives. Every day, hundreds of African Christians contract this disease, and begin the slow slide toward a rotting, decaying existence because your flunkies are screwing up. And don’t believe for a second that they’re handling their business either – you told them that Priests weren’t to have sex, but they found a loophole. Sex is only between opposing sexes, isn’t it? Every night, a few hundred pageboys go to bed with aching bottoms because some random priest got frisky. These are your chosen servants? I’m starting to wonder, my lord.
The Jews, the ones who claim to be your chosen ones are also neck deep in it. They’re in a precarious position – their country, your holy land is at war. They’re surrounded by hostile forces; who strangely enough, are also your children. Jewish honour, which has always been a benchmark, is slowly being eroded. In their battle for peace, they commit horrific acts to preserve their existence. Why have you condemned them to this fate? Why must forty odd children – relatively blameless, in the greater scheme – be murdered by an Israeli rocket just so that Israelis can live in security? Is this the fate you have chosen for us – that we must learn the deepest, darkest parts of our natures, that we are ready to murder, and destroy and pillage others just so that we our safe? The Middle East has been at war forever. Make it stop, I beg of you. Every day, hundreds die so thousands may live. Again, where is the justice in this? The cost of one Israeli soldier is a few hundred square kilometers of Lebanese land bombed to rubble. Not that it was much in the first place – but some people called it home. Now they have nowhere to go.
Are you trying to tell us something here, God? Are we so unworthy, have we committed such a heinous crime that we must watch everything we have built up be cast down in fire and blood? Tell us what we did wrong. You owe it to us.
My country, India, is also a mess.
We aren’t religious in the regular sense of the word – we’ve got a number of co-existing religions, and they usually manage to work together. We aren’t torn apart by war, at the very least. Nonetheless, murder, bribery, corruption and sleaze compete for the headlines even here. And we’re supposed to be the peaceful ones. Remember Gujrat. Remember Kashmir.
God, peace doesn’t work. You messed up somewhere, or perhaps we grew in new ways when you abandoned us – for I have truly come to believe that even though you might have existed at one time, you have truly turned your back on us.
India is not an aggressive country. That I can say with certainty. We’ve had recent enough examples of peace (Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa) to show us that a lot can be achieved without war, even though the price in blood must be paid. We’ve been attacked almost constantly since the beginning of our existence, when the British left. We’ve fought to defend ourselves, but we have yet to make war on another country. For this simple reason, we are attacked again, and again. Recently, hundreds were murdered in the city of my birth, Bombay. Bombs – explosive materials packed with shards of glass and metal – were put aboard trains carrying people home to their families. You can imagine the result.
And this is but a miniscule footnote to the madness that rages through our world. There are so many countries I’ve left out of this – Russia and Chechnya, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China, South America…every single existing country has a history soaked in blood. I’m probably being extraordinarily biased in favour of my country, as I’m sure people will tell me soon enough – but then I’m a human, and therefore flawed. You are God.
I’m not a believer in pure egalitarianism – whatever you might have intended, humans are not equal, not in any way except the basic needs of survival. For that matter, you might as well have said that all living creatures on this planet – or all mammals, at any rate, are equal. Perhaps you did, and man in his arrogance changed it. I don’t know, and I don’t think we ever will.
We don’t have much time left, my lord.
We have created weapons that can destroy a country at a blow. Not a hundred, or a thousand, or tens of thousands of deaths. Millions – even the future generations will be affected. We are at the brink.
If you exist, if there is any mercy in you – help us.
Yours,
With the deepest respect.
I.R Baboon.
Mr. God, we’re sorry. And we’re quite fucked too, for that matter. Yes, it’s quite typical of us humans to ignore you while the going’s good, and come crying when everything goes wahoonie shaped, but you’re like the universal parent, aren’t you? If you just gave us life, and then kicked us out, that’s quite a shady thing to do. If not, then I really think you owe it to us to give us a hand. Personally, I don’t even quite believe in you, so therefore, I must assume that I’m insane to write a letter to you; but there are a lot of people out there counting on you – who’ve dedicated their lives to doing good things in your name. Please at least think about it?
Coming to the questions though – a lot of them have absolutely no bearing on the way the world is going, more of me trying to understand you. Yes, I’m an arrogant fool to assume that I can comprehend what others die trying to, but you knew that anyway, didn’t you?
Firstly, man, who are you? As in, which one are you? Err. Yes, that was the right question. You have a bunch of names – Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Jehovah, Allah, the Father, so on, and so forth. I think the problem we’re having here is that we’re getting a little confused as to which one you’d actually like to be. You can also have all of them, of course, but it would make life a whole lot easier if you just let us know. People are dying here, man – there’s people out there that believe almost exactly the same thing, but they’re fighting and dying because their interpretation – or because what their particular prophet told them differs in the specifics. This brings me to my second question.
Dude, seriously, what was the point of having so many religions? We love you just the way you are, you don’t have to change. All right, the Christianity and Judaism bits are quite similar, so we can probably put that divide down to human conceit (after all, they share the same book, don’t they?), but what in the name of…err, what in your name was the point of putting a warrior religion, Islam, right there next to them? You’ve also confused the fuck out of a lot of people, you know. You’ve given us two different religions – Christianity and Islam – and you’ve told BOTH of them that their God is the only God. Were you looking for a fight, or what?
Look at what’s going on in the world – hell, what’s gone on in the world for centuries now. How many wars have been fought in your name, how many of your children have been slaughtered, tortured, burned, and destroyed utterly, all in your name? How much blood has blackened the souls of your chosen warriors, who destroyed entire civilisations for your greater glory? The crusades are still being fought, my lord – your children still kill one another because you never taught us to share. It could be a sign that there’s no difference between us, having the same holy land – but then tell us, won’t you? This game of spiritual dumb charades will be the death of us, else.
How can you stand your religions being perverted and raped of all decent meaning, by greedy, selfish men, whose only thirst is power? Muslims are brainwashed into believing that there is no greater purpose in life than to die for a cause – when surely the greatest purpose would be to live for that very same cause? They believe that in sacrificing themselves with your name on their lips, and killing a few thousand souls in the process, in your name, they have assured themselves a place in Jannat. Is this justice? Is this the truth you told us to seek out? Christians are no better, I might add. Their weapons are simply different. They’ve been on top for so long that they’ve come to believe that they have a right to existence beyond all the rest of us. Our deaths are termed as ‘collateral damage’, while if you read their newspapers (these sheets of paper folded together with recent events and opinions and things printed on them), each Christian death (well, I mean American, really, it’s pretty much turning into a zealot country) is a martyr’s death. They’ve usurped the right to set the rules of the world, what with being the most powerful countries, and somehow it seems that no matter what we do, they always take home the money.
God, why is there so much inequality? In Hollywood, people spend thousands and thousands of dollars a day on clothes, and cars, and watches, basically shiny, sparkly stuff that they want to own first. In my country, some people exist on half a dollar a day. Even less, sometimes.
In Africa, AIDS rages unimpeded because your voice on earth, the Pope is against the use of contraceptives. Every day, hundreds of African Christians contract this disease, and begin the slow slide toward a rotting, decaying existence because your flunkies are screwing up. And don’t believe for a second that they’re handling their business either – you told them that Priests weren’t to have sex, but they found a loophole. Sex is only between opposing sexes, isn’t it? Every night, a few hundred pageboys go to bed with aching bottoms because some random priest got frisky. These are your chosen servants? I’m starting to wonder, my lord.
The Jews, the ones who claim to be your chosen ones are also neck deep in it. They’re in a precarious position – their country, your holy land is at war. They’re surrounded by hostile forces; who strangely enough, are also your children. Jewish honour, which has always been a benchmark, is slowly being eroded. In their battle for peace, they commit horrific acts to preserve their existence. Why have you condemned them to this fate? Why must forty odd children – relatively blameless, in the greater scheme – be murdered by an Israeli rocket just so that Israelis can live in security? Is this the fate you have chosen for us – that we must learn the deepest, darkest parts of our natures, that we are ready to murder, and destroy and pillage others just so that we our safe? The Middle East has been at war forever. Make it stop, I beg of you. Every day, hundreds die so thousands may live. Again, where is the justice in this? The cost of one Israeli soldier is a few hundred square kilometers of Lebanese land bombed to rubble. Not that it was much in the first place – but some people called it home. Now they have nowhere to go.
Are you trying to tell us something here, God? Are we so unworthy, have we committed such a heinous crime that we must watch everything we have built up be cast down in fire and blood? Tell us what we did wrong. You owe it to us.
My country, India, is also a mess.
We aren’t religious in the regular sense of the word – we’ve got a number of co-existing religions, and they usually manage to work together. We aren’t torn apart by war, at the very least. Nonetheless, murder, bribery, corruption and sleaze compete for the headlines even here. And we’re supposed to be the peaceful ones. Remember Gujrat. Remember Kashmir.
God, peace doesn’t work. You messed up somewhere, or perhaps we grew in new ways when you abandoned us – for I have truly come to believe that even though you might have existed at one time, you have truly turned your back on us.
India is not an aggressive country. That I can say with certainty. We’ve had recent enough examples of peace (Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa) to show us that a lot can be achieved without war, even though the price in blood must be paid. We’ve been attacked almost constantly since the beginning of our existence, when the British left. We’ve fought to defend ourselves, but we have yet to make war on another country. For this simple reason, we are attacked again, and again. Recently, hundreds were murdered in the city of my birth, Bombay. Bombs – explosive materials packed with shards of glass and metal – were put aboard trains carrying people home to their families. You can imagine the result.
And this is but a miniscule footnote to the madness that rages through our world. There are so many countries I’ve left out of this – Russia and Chechnya, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China, South America…every single existing country has a history soaked in blood. I’m probably being extraordinarily biased in favour of my country, as I’m sure people will tell me soon enough – but then I’m a human, and therefore flawed. You are God.
I’m not a believer in pure egalitarianism – whatever you might have intended, humans are not equal, not in any way except the basic needs of survival. For that matter, you might as well have said that all living creatures on this planet – or all mammals, at any rate, are equal. Perhaps you did, and man in his arrogance changed it. I don’t know, and I don’t think we ever will.
We don’t have much time left, my lord.
We have created weapons that can destroy a country at a blow. Not a hundred, or a thousand, or tens of thousands of deaths. Millions – even the future generations will be affected. We are at the brink.
If you exist, if there is any mercy in you – help us.
Yours,
With the deepest respect.
I.R Baboon.
(Now I know there are some of you buggers out there who just won't be able to resist posting a comment as God. Here's your answer in advance. You're a jackass.)
8 comments:
my son, illegitimate though you are, born of an ape and an oversized donkey, called baboon only because your true name is too frightful, my son nonetheless, it is YOU who are a jackass.
you are all my children, and like all children, you are fools.
you fight because you want to fight. i say don't fight. i whisper in your ears, privately, that YOU are the best, YOU are my favourites, you don't have to fight to prove it, the rest are idiots. but you go and fight nonetheless. think about it. have you ever seen a sign of wet paint? you know what tickling that causes in your loins, right?
it's my old enemy that whispers in your other ear, touch it, TOUCH IT.
but then, you never DID listen to me. he was always the more charismatic.
You want to hear more? I'm always available for a cup of tea and a chat. Just get run over by the next bus, I'll arrange everything from there.
'have you ever seen a sign of wet paint? you know what tickling that causes in your loins, right?
it's my old enemy that whispers in your other ear, touch it, TOUCH IT.'
Have you ever seen a sign that goes
'Now I know there are some of you buggers out there who just won't be able to resist posting a comment as God. Here's your answer in advance. You're a jackass'
Yes, I know, I was always the more charismatic. Even when I tell you not to do something, you insist on doing it anyway. Ruddy infant.
by the by, if i'm your son, and i was born of an ape and an oversized donkey, should i call you eeyore from now on?
Read book
Conversation with God... 1,2 &3
listen to this song..windmills of your mind..its by sting. maybe it ll shed some light.
Good ol' God. My thoughts on him here.
dude, he's just having a bit of fun. you think we're his only children? you think he's tending only this world? we're one species out of a miliion to the power million billion. why should he care about us? what have we ever done for him? what has he got out of this relationship?
hmmm...
God is a human construct. He began that way, and all religions began that way. What is religion anyway except a bunch of rules telling you how to live your life so as to please God most. If you do live your life that way, God'll be happy and you will be happy. And then there has to be a set of mediators between divine and earthly who're given the job of decideing and interpreting God' will as they 'originally' put it down in the holy books. And here's where everything goes wrong. Interpretation. And now religion's a pot-luck party.
I'm not saying God doesn't exist. I believe in him. He's human construct, but human constructs are real. But something happened that humans didn't construct. he got a sense of humour. Black humour...
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