Don’t Tell Me Who God Is, We’ve Met

And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. ³ Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Believe in The Bible all you want, don’t bother me a bit. But there’s certain passages I get hung up on and perhaps none more than the one above. Followers of the Biblical God believe that he (or she, or actually considering the existence of The Holy Trinity I think They might be more appropriate, but I just mopped my floor and don’t wanna have to clean up a can of worms) created the Earth in a mere 6 days.

Now that right there is hard enough to fathom, but it’s not the part I have trouble with. For the sake of argument or perhaps ironically playing The Devil’s Advocate, I’ll go against my better judgment and assume it’s true that it went down that way. I mean if this feller or gal or non-binary being is powerful enough to move mountains, heal the sick with a touch, walk on water and rise from the dead, I see no reason why he couldn’t also create the world in a timely manner. The trouble I have with it, see, is the part where on the 7th day he rested. If I had to guess, that’s probably also the day he thought to invent Mexicans.

Call me crazy, but what type of omniscient and omnipotent being powerful enough to flood the earth, torture his most beloved follower into almost killing their child using a teenage-girl-level-ultimatum , fill the seas with blood, cover the earth in locusts, and order the execution of the first born son in every family needs to rest?

If the Third Reich can employ the use of amphetamines to go on a 3 day bender in the sky shooting down allied planes, and if Dr’s David D'Andrea and Jerome Schentag could come up with Adderall in the 90’s to keep our kids from drooling all over their calculus exams, surely the good God above could pull some sort of reverse Avada Kedavra (sorry to you non Harry Potter fans for that reference) and keep himself awake and energized Ad infinitum (sorry to you non Latin fans for the reference)

As with most things I write, the first couple paragraphs are sortly beside the point. They just serve to show you the inspiration that led me to the pretentious BS I’m about to lay down over the next several. Thank you for baring with me.

Unfortunately I’m still forced to doom-scroll on the app formerly known as Twitter, and I’ve noticed sort of a harrowing trend as of late. It’s not news to anyone that when he who shall not be named (damn. Another Harry Potter reference!) bought twitter, the algorithm was heavily shifted to promote our current president and his campaign, along with hate speech, blatant disinformation, and most shocking to me literal pro Hitler propaganda!

If you aren’t online a lot you may think I’m being hyperbolic, but unfortunately I am not. There is now a large swath of people both old and young who are claiming that we have been lied to about Hitler by the media and that he wasn’t actually the villain we’ve all been lead to believe. I myself find it entirely too convenient that this is all happening during the first time since World War 2 that there are not enough veterans to refute it and speak out. I can tell you right now that if my Great Grandpa and Uncles were still around, they’d inform you that it is your patriotic duty to punch any and every Nazi sympathizer directly in the face. But yet again I digress.

The latest in this series of algorithmic shifts with the sole purpose of keeping us all fighting while the oligarchs rob us blind has been what I’d describe as “Vigilant Christianity” and that is to say, Christianity that doesn’t focus on anything Jesus ever said, but instead aims to bully and mock any and everyone who doesn’t view the Holy Bible as infallible (the Kings James Version of course, cause we all know God wrote it in Olde English for the white man)

Look, I’m all for standing up for what you believe in. I’d be a hypocrite to say otherwise. And in my belief, I certainly include your right to believe in, and stand up for your religion. But as I feel applies to everything from our Constitution to the rules written in chalk on elementary school boards across the country: your rights end where mine begin, and frankly, this shift towards Christian Nationalism falls firmly in that camp in my opinion.

I’ve seen these people claim that Hindus worship the devil. Hell I’ve even seen a great many of them say that Allah is the devil even though anyone who has half a brain knows that Allah just means God in Muslim speak. It’s absolutely insane, it’s dangerous, and it’s certainly not what Jesus would have you do. So perhaps you all need to start wearing them little bracelets again.

I’ve been called an atheist because I’m not a Christian. Which is weird cause I didn’t know there were only two options. I am here to tell you that I am not an atheist. Far from it. As I write this to you I am walking around the park listening to Bob Dylan and I’ve lost count on how many times I’ve seen God. I saw her in the trees as she rustled the leaves ever so gently with her breath. I saw her in a mother squirrel feeding her youngin. I saw her in a deer staring me down and giving me the stink eye cause I was walking in his preferred path. And I felt her in my soul when after taking a breath of fresh air I felt all my worries evaporate for a brief second. I see god in people. The helpers. I see god in the lakes and the streams.

Just about the only thing I don’t see God in anymore is the people who try to tell me who God is.

I’ve been told that because I don’t believe in a biblical god, I can’t be a moral person cause there’s no one telling me what is wrong or right. I began this essay with a quote, so I guess I’ll end it with one:

If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother, that person is a piece of shit." - DETECTIVE RUST COHLE, TRUE DETECTIVE

Well said, Rust.

Now y’all get out there and see God today