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It was pathetic the way Friel kept saying, "This is a game..."
Well, in the decision to dispense with faith, it actually isn't to you when you've done it. I don't know if anyone else has had enough of the religious inculcation that's just innate to our culture, but I would bet I'm not alone in guessing that many professed atheists have actually already played this game out, ourselves, in our own minds, in a moment of doubt about our own doubt. "What if" there's a God? I wasn't brought up particularly religious, but I know I kind of did. What if?
Well, right. If He/She/It (to cover the gender possibilities--we're made in God's image, but male and female he created us--just going by the rules of the game--we could also go with both, but maybe gender was an afterthought for Adam and Eve: this would explain sooooo much) is omniscient, I don't have to answer for my life--God would already know. Just by the rules of the game, you see. He/She/It should also know better than to expect unending gratitude, or being also omnipotent (we're just talking about the rules of the game) should easily know how to get that gratitude if He/She/It wants it. If there is a God, who is both omniscient and omnipotent, exactly what standard does He/She/It (she-he-it? I think I like how that would be pronounced) employ to morally judge us, admittedly far less perceptive entities? Does God really need to be acknowledged by us on a regular basis to feel good about she-he-itself? And should we really feel good about the news that she-he-it sent s/h/itself in our form to die for us?
I don't really want to see anybody die. It's a lousy way to do business. It's a guilt-trip. Did she-he-it roll back the stone on an empty tomb as "proof of life" to hold shimitself hostage these past 2000 years, and expect us to give good behavior in return? If it was she-he-it's choice to do that well before I was even born--what's it to do with me? I'm sorry, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient deity--you didn't ask me, I can't take it back, and if I were there, I'd have been circulating a petition to try and get Your charges dropped. The scenario isn't merely absurd--to toss it back at whoever said "I believe it because it's absurd" and also at CS Lewis, who rather ruined the Narnia Chronicles at the end with a Rapture, who basically pinned his faith on the same "credo quia absurdam" business, and who all those debaters end up coming back to--it's cruel. It doesn't speak well of God for arranging it, and it doesn't speak well of us if we accepted that gift, because it's too great a price. No murder on my behalf, really. Thanks, but no. Not even if the sacrifice lives. Because that means I'd be complicit in it and would stand to gain, and everything my reason tells me is moral says, "That ain't right."
Hitchens has thought the game out already, lived it, has the t-shirt.
It wouldn't be so bad for Friel if he "practiced" that thought-experiment out a bit, though.
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