The Gods May Not Be Crazy

The Gods May Not Be Crazy

A recent sophomoric prank at Davidson College has given me a new religious perspective. It seems that a small group of fraternity brothers, with time on their hands between keggers, decided, on a dare, that it would be a good idea to go to the local pond and kill a goose with a golf club. In the ranks of frat boy hijinks, this is pretty small potatoes, even though these guys got into relatively big trouble. After all, they did kill a member of a federally protected species. Apparently, geese need more protection than hungry children, or the sick, aged, or homeless. But that’s an issue that I can elevate my blood pressure over some other time.

I am admittedly a bit of a cynical agnostic. I have tended to believe that if there is a God at all, he is as Mark Twain envisioned him in The Mysterious Stranger: Detached and aloof, taking an interest in us only in an often maliciously whimsical way. But now I see that I was wrong. It seems that the Greeks and Romans had is right. There is not one God, but instead, a big old celestial frat house full of fun loving elitist snob Gods. Picture this, what pleasure would a single God get out of stirring the stick of misery into the human anthill if he didn’t have other gods to share in the mirth. It must be true that we are all made in God’s image, because the basic human pleasures of humor and laughter are based on cruelty to others. If you don’t believe this, try to think of a single joke that doesn’t fit these criteria.

Okay, so here we’ve got this frat house full of fun loving all-powerful beings, bent on having a good time at our expense. I guess it’s like interactive TV. Picture this; A group of Gods are sitting around in the rec room, maybe drinking beer and eating Doritos. One God is flipping stations from one human scenario to another. “Watch this,” he says, as he fiddles with the remote, and a bus full of children plunges off a cliff. (Big laugh from the others.) In the spirit of one-upmanship, another God grabs the remote and causes a drought over Africa, which kills thousands. Remember, being immortal, these Gods have lots of time on there hands.

I suspect that it is also possible to achieve God status. As you might expect, the college fraternity provides a good template for how this might happen. Every year, the Gods invite a few worthy humans to join their pledge class. Potential pledges go through a rigorous selection process. No mere psychopath need apply. They would be chosen based on their earthly achievements in areas such as war, genocide, oppression, etc., but mostly for their potential for the continuing entertainment of their fellow Gods, at the expense of the human race. Some pledges don’t make the cut; Men Like Hitler, Stalin, or Dick Cheney are just too mean to become Gods. Their potential to destroy the whole world is just too great.

The pledges are carefully groomed, here on earth, in the ways of Godliness, but the hapless freshman pledges are subject to a lot of hazing by the upper class Gods. They get sent out on celestial Snipe hunts like George W Bush’s mission to invade Iraq. Imagine their laughter when he announced “Mission accomplished” all dressed in his aviator jacket aboard the USS Lincoln. They must have been rolling on the floor when they put him in front of those elementary children with his goofy deer in the headlights expression, while the men in charge decided what to do in response to 9/11.

There may even be some benevolent Gods. How they get by the vetting process, I don’t know. Maybe they are in something like the service fraternities. These Gods, considered nerd and dork Gods by the Other Gods, although well intentioned, achieve little good because they are not well connected like the frat Gods. After all, there’s no humor in good deeds.

I know this idea will seem crazy, and even blasphemous to most people, but it makes about as much sense as any other organized religion.