Let's Talk About God... Baby.
I'm an atheist, you might have noticed. This doesn't mean I don't like talking about god, God, Gods, Goddesses and so forth. I usually approach such talks in the same spirit as I discuss Buffy The Vampire Slayer: as an involving and exciting fiction. I can get very excited about Buffy.

So with this in mind, I'd like to direct you to a post on Joe's website, Labyrinth of Meat Coils. I'm also reproducing my commentary here on my site, mostly because I need to fill space and look like I've been writing. Read Joe's original post first, then:

That was good stuff. Thought provoking even. As a moral relativist, I'm actually most interested in the last point you make: the idea that God (air quotes) may be on everybody's side. Or maybe God (air quotes) is on no one's side? Let's assume for a moment that God does exist, and that God is in fact an active participant and observer of all terrestrial happenings. Then what conclusions can we draw? The quickest conclusion is that we're saddled with your typical uncaring god, but the more interesting conclusion is that god does care, and cares equally for all points of view. Terrorist and World trade Center employees, Hitler and the Allies, Joe Lopez and George W Bush are all equally rightous in his sight.

I'll actually take my queue from JRR Tolkien here: in The Silmarillion, Tolkien creates a new, albeit heavily borrowed from Genesis, creation myth for Middle Earth. In it, Illuvata (AKA. God (air quotes)), creates the Valar and then conposes a song for them to sing. Then after they start singing, he gives the greatest of them the freedom to improvise. Most of the impovisers harmonize nicely, but Melchor sings a dissonant little tune, cause he's bad. As Melchor starts screwing up the song, Illuvata redirects the rest of the choir around him and the song becomes even more beautiful. This happens sevral more times, and from this song, Middle Earth is created. The Valar go down to Middle Earth to give it form, and Melchor spends the rest of Eternity trying to screw it up (Sauron and those guys come later).

The point is: to God, the dissonance was just as beautiful as the song, perhaps more so, because it added complexity to his song and allowed even greater harmonies to be created. Every act Melchor took to destroy, only made it more beautiful in the mind of Illuvata. Maybe not to the people of Middle Earth though. To them, the actions of Melchor brought death, suffering, blood and the ruin of entire civilizations.

Does that mean God doesn't care about our suffering? Not at all... he thinks it's beautiful.
- posted by Katherine @ 10:25 AM