Hey God, it's ya Boi

“To some people independent thought is heresy and critical thought blasphemy” ―rassool jibraeel snyman

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The Audi races around the corner and gracefully stops at the light. "I didn't know you grew up Jehovah Witness" Angel says to me. He's driving me home from work. We live pretty close together, so it's a convenience I'm grateful for. Angel is a coworker (and friend) whom I have cerebral discussions with. We never set out to have them, but once our minds start going, the destination is inevitable. "Yeah, I have a complicated relationship with religion and spirituality" I retort. So here I am, wading through the waters of the thought.

I have always been rather agnostic. I think it stems around being unsure of whether the religion of my youth was "the true religion." After all, truth is subjective. Its relativism vs Absolutism. Get ready, this is a helluva rabbit hole. Disclaimer: I will do my best to be respectful of beliefs in this interrogation, but if you want to bail out now, no hard feelings. So let's start at the beginning, shall we?

We all have questions. It's how we learned when we were younger. We've all been the tyke asking "why" to our parents. Sometimes you got a satisfactory answer. Other times, you get an answer that begs another question. So then we employ this rigamarole, until our parents get tired or frustrated or both. Then you grow up, and now instead of "why is the sky blue?" you pose to the universe such questions like, "why are we here?" "what's the point of life?" and on and on, like Erykah said. I think religion is mankind's search for closure. Thing is, we can't end a debate when we don't even agree on the topic. So let's establish some ground rules, I'll be examining the "God" of christianity, since that's the only one I'm truly knowledgeable on.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Well, the first sign of a lie is conflicting information. Creationist believe that the universe was made with in a literal span of six days and God rested on the seventh. I don't know about you, but that's a really productive week. Also, if I'm all powerful, why do I need to rest? See what I mean? Then, there's people who say "well not literal days, it's metaphorical." That I can get behind. It caters to the writer in me. All I do is speak in metaphors. I mean, you read my shit. It's filled with metaphors. But sometimes we need things said in plain English. Like, for instance the origins of the universe. Moving on, God says "Let their be light" and invents the clapper light switch. Not really. But wouldn't that be a crazy story?! God then proceeds to make the sea, sky, earth, stars, fish, birds, animals and finally, man. This is where things go off the rails.

"Let us make man, in our image, according to our likeness..." t'was the sovereign decree. Thus, man was formed. Then God gives him only one rule, "From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will certainly die." Next, in God's infinite wisdom, he said, " lemme swing a baddie his way so he doesn't get all sad and shit." Of course I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it. God presents Eve to Adam, Adam says a little haiku and the two are wed. Again, this is the Cliffsnotes version of the story. God gives them the task of naming the animals and procreating. Now here comes the monkey wrench. A snake starts chatting up Eve, which honestly should've been the first sign something wasn't quite right here. Eve had been around snakes before, none of them said a word. Anywhosie, the snake convinces Eve that the "fruit" should be eaten, that God's full of shit, and won't nothing happen to her or her man. Okay, so pause the story right there. Since God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent, couldn't he have intervened and said "lissen that yin-yang you kickin' in homegirls ear is whack son. I kept it a hunnid wit shawty so she already knows what it is." Nope. Instead, Eve listens to the snake and eats the fruit. At this point, God could've still stepped in, warned Adam that Eve was on that bullshit, and all would've been saved. NOPE. Adam eats the fruit and mankind is plunged into sin and destruction.

I've always had a rough time internalizing this story. Firstly, if God knows what you're going to do before you do it, didn't he know that they were going partake of the fruit? Following that logic, then God made created them to eat the fruit, so there's no sin. Additionally, if God knows all the things you're going to do before you do them, doesn't that take away the concept of free will? And if he only uses that power to look into the future sparingly, then doesn't that mean he's not omniscient, since he doesn't ALWAYS know what's going to happen? Moreover why do we, as Adam and Eve's children have to pay for their shitty decision? Last time I checked, I --or anyone else for that matter-- wasn't there, so how is it our fault? Since then, there have been slaughters on epic proportions, famines that have starved civilizations, pestilence that have wiped out half a countries population-- and I'm not even talking about COVID-- and it could have all been avoided. These are questions that arise from an analysis of just the first three chapters, of the first book of the Bible. There are 66 books of the Bible. So you can see my frustration.

So here I am, at close to three in the morning, clanging on this keyboard. Grappling with my thimble-sized faith. Ironically praying for closure. I think that perhaps we don't have a complete picture of who God truly is. Or, the more sinister assertion: perhaps he doesn't exist? If he does, does he burden himself with the cares of mortals? I can't imagine some all-powerful being idly sitting by whilst children, who haven't even started living, have their bodies betray them with cancer. How do you reconcile that? How do you reconcile, ministers abusing children to just be herded from one parish to another? Maybe there's some grace in it I'm not privy to. Perhaps there's some grandiose plan and I just haven't gotten the memo yet. I'm open to the idea. In fact, I hope I am categorically wrong. In that, there's salvation. In that, there's hope. But so far, all that's been bestowed upon me, is questions.

I have questions that will probably be buried with me. Existential queries that won't be quietly quelled, qualified or quenched. Instead they a seared into the recesses of my conscious with scripture. Perhaps, I need to remind myself that no one gets to know it all. I'm not omniscient. And I don't want to be. All I do know, is that no one truly does know. We're just chugging along, on this rock, hurdling through space. And that's okay. We might not know why we're on this earth, but we're here nonetheless. The task is to do something worthwhile during your stay here. In the end, when I go to my final resting place, I hope to be judged not by the answers I found, but by the questions I asked.